Hoarded
by Rose's.wings
Summary: Everybody in Oak Town knows a dragon used to live in the mountains looming over them, just like everybody else in Earth-Land knows where there used to be dragons, there's still treasure. It's just too bad for Levy McGarden, runaway princess turned wandering wizard and treasure hunter, what everybody doesn't know is just how wrong they are. AU
1. All the Old Stories

So, I wasn't going to post this...but then I wound up writing nearly sixteen chapters and I can't seem to stop. And now I hope not to until I finish and, true to form, I have no idea when that will be. n_n; But it should be fun getting there. Gihi!

A few disclaimers before the good stuff: the only Fairy Tail I own is the manga editions I got at Barnes & Noble (and the wait for the next one is killing me! Dx) And I got the first inspiration to write this when I saw an amazing drawing on pintrest. I'll tell you which one later to avoid any spoilers though. ;) Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the first chapter! And to any of my Transformers readers that may have wandered over, I haven't forgotten my robots! It's just, well, fairies are distracting and have no concept of time...

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Hoarded

One: All the Old Stories...are Wrong

All the old stories agreed that dragons kept their hoards on the tallest peaks of the most isolated mountains, and that to be worthy of seeing the fabled treasure, knights and hunters had to pass the most rigorous tests, endure the most brutal conditions, only to find themselves facing the fiercely protective dragons themselves. All the old stories said so, which meant everybody knew the difficulties despite the fact the dragons had all died four hundred years ago during the War of the Races.

And yet, somehow, Levy hadn't expected the rain.

The wind howled with all the fury of the dragon's ghost, driving the freezing rain into her eyes and lashing at her face like stinging pellets. Half-blind and mostly numb despite her layers of thick clothes, heavy and sodden from the torrent, Levy clung to the cliff face with a tenacity that would have astounded the courtiers of her life before if they could have seen her. She wasn't a knight – wasn't even a princess now that she'd abandoned her life in the tiny kingdom of Fable – she had no armor, no sword. Just enough upper body strength to slowly pull herself up the steep incline of the mountain and an innate ability to surprise.

 _Books!_ she kept reminding herself as she surged upwards another inch. _Ancient books, falling apart books, books so large they can't be anything but tomes! Paper and ink and leather so old it creaks when you open the cover. Stacks and stacks of them. Hundreds- thousands! Taller than me. Books only a dragon would have!_

Levy grit her teeth as she summoned all her remaining strength and _heaved_ her small body up onto a narrow shelf, no more than two feet wide. She almost hit the crown of her head on the rock, it was so close.

She squeezed onto the ledge and lay there, curled up on her side as she gasped in cold air. It stabbed t her lungs as the rain continued to soak her through, freezing her in the high mountain air.

"Books," she mumbled as she panted, "no one alive has ever read. But me."

It felt good to just lie there, and she had to remember why remaining still at this altitude was a bad thing. The cold could be lethal this high up, and the rain wasn't helping anything.

Levy forced herself up with a groan that was drowned out by a thunderclap loud enough to set her teeth vibrating in her jaw. She was too exhausted to jump, but looked up wearily as another fork of lightning split the sky open like a curtain parting and revealing daylight on the other side.

In the near-blinding flash of light, she surveyed how much farther she would have to go to reach the top. The craggy peak rose straight up over her head, its tip iced over and sharp. It didn't look like much, but she knew it was farther than it appeared. Hanging her head just long enough to sigh, Levy hoped she had the strength left to make it.

 _Books_ , she reminded herself. _Do it for the books, Lev!_

She searched the narrow ledge for a better way up than the straight cliff next to her, and found the little crags and nooks she'd used to get up this far a foot away from the end of her ledge. She spared a look down, swallowing hard when she saw there would be nothing below her but a good half-mile fall, before she breathed in fresh courage and swung herself out.

The storm grew wilder, fiercer, as if it was frantic to keep her from reaching the top, but there's nothing like a human obsession when it comes to overcoming the elements, and Levy's was life-long and deeply ingrained. The storm didn't have a chance at stopping her.

Still, when she heaved herself up that last foot and fell gracelessly against the unexpected flat ground, she was surprised she'd made it.

The howl of the wind immediately dimmed, as if it suddenly didn't see the point, and Levy lay there on her stomach, panting for air with her fingers gripping the dirt instinctively, having done nothing but cling for the last day and a half. She felt strange, but was so exhausted that it took her a handful of moments to realize why.

 _The rain..._ The thought finally trickled into her mind like the water running down the bridge of her nose. _It's stopped._

She forced her eyes half-open and managed to lift her head enough to see that wasn't true. If anything the downpour was heavier, the storm shaking its fist at her escape into what looked like a cave. At least she wasn't being beaten senseless by the storm anymore, she thought as she folded her knees under her and sat up. And the air was...well, not warm, but some of the bite hadn't made it past the shelter of the rocks. She was still drenched though, the water already gathering into a puddle beneath her as it ran out of her hair and clothes in rivulets, and her breath left little white clouds hanging in the air as she panted.

Lightning speared through the sky again, three successive sheets that illuminated the cave mouth behind her and painted the walls white. The cave reached deeper than she'd first thought, going straight back at least forty feet before-

Levy gasped a split second before thunder _boomed_ down the side of the mountain like a war trumpet. The rear of the cave was mostly flat, hard to distinguish in the brief glimpse she'd gotten, but Levy _knew_ what she'd seen.

She'd seen a door.

A door hidden at the top of the tallest mountain.

"I found it."

Her whispered words skittered over the rocky floor like small mice, noses raised and twitching in curiosity. Dangerous or exciting? Dangerous or exciting?

 _Both_ , Levy hoped.

She pushed herself to her battered feet and darted forward, her legs nearly collapsing under her twice. She caught herself on the door itself the second time, and marveled at its smooth exterior. It was well-crafted, not a chisel mark marring its cold, clean surface. In fact, the only crack she felt past the thin material of her gloves was the central seam running straight down the middle.

Levy lifted one hand away long enough to drag her quill pen out of her thin supply pack, the other pressed against the door as if she was afraid it would vanish if she let go. Then again, maybe it would. Dragons were fiercely protective of their hoards, whether it was books or gold or even people. Levy wouldn't put it past one to enchant the door to disappear in the presence of treasure hunters, even centuries after its own death. But she was no stranger to magic and the majority of its tricks.

The small, blue-haired wizard grabbed her pen with her left hand and wrote somewhat awkwardly in the air LIGHT. The letters solidified, became tangible in the air near her head, and soft, steady light glowed into existence.

"Much better," she mumbled as she stuck her quill behind one ear, slid her spelled glasses up her nose, and then placed both hands on the door again, leaning all her slight weight against it. Even if she hadn't used all her physical strength just to get up here, she never would have had a prayer of forcing it open on her own.

She craned her neck back, taking in every facet in the better light. "It's all metal!" she cried, louder than she'd meant to. The storm grumbled outside behind her. "But...it's got to be hundreds of years old if the stories I heard in Oak Town are true. How'd they make it so flawlessly...?" The metalsmiths in Magnolia, capital of Fable and seat of the royal family, had only started producing such fine works of steel in the last ten years, and even then she had seen nothing larger than the swan in midflight decorating the palace fountain.

"I always thought she was perfect, but compared to you..." Levy murmured as she stared up at the door guarding the old keep. "Your craftsman must have spent years shaping you, even if you are rather plain." She tilted her head to the side. "How did a dragon get a hold of you?"

She couldn't fathom a believable reason and decided not to waste anymore time wondering. It wasn't all that important anyway. What was important was getting inside and thawing her frozen bones by a fire.

Peering past what she saw to the magic enscrolled into the door itself, Levy set to work. There were several spells keeping her out, and obviously the one who worked them hadn't done it in any modern language. Given it was a dragon's keep, Levy had expected the key spells to be in Draconik or one of its derivatives, so she had made sure to brush up on all the variants she could find before starting up the mountain. And there were several spells with their root structure grounded in it, all in the high standard, which were easy enough to decipher, so at least she hadn't wasted her time. But the oldest, central locking spell had been cast in an ancient, human tongue. The root language of Levy's own native Mythian actually, which was fortunate or she never could have sorted it out.

"Probably thought it was being clever," Levy grumbled under her breath as she slogged her way through bad syntax and an indifferent attempt at grammar. "Using a human language to keep humans out because what self-respecting dragon would do that even if it _didn't_ want to eat us and send us all screaming in fear of it? Though if that was its plan then it should have done a _better job_." She all but growled as she pulled at a poorly constructed glyph structure and accidentally strengthened the spell.

She hung her head, bumping her forehead against the floor where she'd scrunched herself up as she worked, scratching her own glyphs in the dirt to test their effectiveness against the sealing magic. Levy sat there, huddled under her cloak and its new layer of ice. "This is taking forever..."she groaned.

She lifted her head and continued her work.

The storm had dwindled to a petulant murmur by the time she deciphered the last of the spells. Heart thumping excitedly in her chest, Levy dug the last glyph into the loose dirt that had gathered against the bottom of the metal door. Levy froze, her dirt-caked gloved fingers hovering in the air as she waited for the repercussions of a wrong answer.

Nothing happened.

"Yes!" she squealed, throwing her arms in the air. She would have danced a jig across all her hard work if her legs hadn't fallen asleep half an hour ago.

Painfully, she worked her sluggish blood back into them, flinching as the frosty limbs were pinched and pricked back awake. Levy gathered her things, cramming her equipment back into her pack except for her quill. Finally, all that was left was to enact the spell.

"Right." She breathed deep, too focused on the magic to hear the ice covering her clothes snap and crackle. "Here goes everything."

Pouring her magic into her pen like golden ink, Levy carefully traced over her hastily scratched glyphs, forcing them to her will and sending them into the cracks of the ancient spells like keys into their matching locks.

There was a thump of finality that made her bones tingle when she finished the last one...

...and then the door swung open.

Levy backed up out of the way as the keep opened up before her. The door didn't make a sound. No light appeared on the far side to welcome her inside. Even the wind outside held its breath, leaving the mountain dark and silent.

A warm gust of air billowed out, and Levy closed her eyes, relaxing against it. "That feels good." She sighed. Almost as good as knowing she'd just decrypted spells specifically designed to ward off nosy little humans like her.

Not taking her eyes from the warm darkness inside, Levy flicked the nib of her quill at her solid script light spell and directed it inside ahead of her. Its glow had dwindled the longer it fed off her magic energy, but it looked unbearably bright against the blackness of the mountain.

Levy followed it inside, watchful for traps the dragon might have set before it died. She was so tired, despite the thrill pounding through her with each beat of her heart, and a jaw-cracking yawn escaped before she knew it was there.

The small woman stopped for a moment, not wanting to run into anything as her eyes were forced shut. When was the last time she'd slept? Before the storm certainly, and that felt like it had gone on for days. She knew she needed to sleep, but she wanted to find the library first.

"I'll set up camp there," Levy told herself, a smile stretching across her face so wide it hurt her cheeks. "That'll be best, I think. It's what I came for after all."

Levy made her way slowly through the long corridor of stone, occasionally directing her light through the air to get her bearings. The space was tall enough she couldn't see the roof even with her light, and as broad as two Magnolia thoroughfares, shops and all. "Definitely large enough to accommodate a full grown dragon," she murmured.

She had the general impression she was going down, although there was no obvious incline. The walls began to curve shortly, leading her in a counterclockwise spiral. Levy followed, frown deepening between her dark eyes the longer she went without seeing anything but rock. Where was the library? The legendary treasure that Oak Town's original settlers had come searching for? And if it was all a story, something made of an excessive imagination and too much ale, then why the door? Why close it with all those spells if there was nothing worth protecting on the other side?

"There has to be _something_ ," Levy told herself as she followed the gradual downward curve. "It wouldn't make sense otherwise."

At least, not to a human like her, but maybe to a dragon...?

Levy kept walking, ignoring the fear gnawing at the pit of her stomach. Or maybe that was hunger. She pulled one of her remaining oat cakes from her pack and nibbled at it, eyes on her surroundings.

She dropped the remaining half when she turned the next corner, her mouth falling open with a gasp that echoed in the newly open space. _Now this is more like it!_

The inside wall had fallen away, replaced by a row of squat columns holding floor from ceiling at wide intervals. She could make out dark holes in the wall opposite her, and more on what little she could see of the lower levels. Rooms, or smaller caves used as rooms was her guess. She looked forward to finding out.

The center of the mountain looked like it had been drilled out, cored like an apple. Levy walked to the edge, one hand resting on the nearest column – it had none of the metal door's smooth finery, and was hewn directly from the mountain rock – and peered down into the empty space. It didn't stretch all the way down to the base of the mountain, only a few hundred feet. Certain death to her, but not terribly high to the original occupant, Levy figured.

Her light was much too feeble to see all this, but there was something down at the bottom, a burnt red kind of glow, like from a massive fire banked for the night, and it was enough to see between the shadows that still lived in the dragon's keep.

 _Wow..._ Levy thought, the silence too oppressive for her to break. _The books must be in one of those rooms_. She huffed, counting at least fifteen and those were only the ones she could see. _Oh, it'll take forever to search them all!_

But she couldn't think of a better way, so she started down, head hanging lower than before.

The light grew stronger as she went, changed color from sleeping embers to yellow torchlight. That didn't surprise her, considering she was getting closer to whatever was glowing at the bottom of the keep.

What _did_ was coming around another curve and finding a tiny, black-furred creature hovering off the floor on white wings, lighting torches.

Levy stopped cold. For the briefest of moments, she was convinced she was seeing things, but then the two-foot-tall...bear – it looked like a small bear with its round ears and stubby limbs – turned and saw her standing there. It jerked backward, punk dropping to the ground and shedding sparks. It saw her too!

Levy's mouth dropped open.

They stood there, staring at each other, long enough that the punk went out. Levy wasn't sure what to make of this. Was the little creature living down here? Were there more of them? And what was it? She'd certainly never seen anything like it. It looked like an animal, but it was wearing pants and there was the hilt of some kind of dagger peeking over its right shoulder. And the way it watched her, taking in her wet clothes and sagging pack, the ink staining her cheek and the dirt coating her gloves and knees, made her think it was sizing her up as well.

She opened her mouth to ask it if it could talk, if it lived in the mountain and knew where the dragon might have left all its books because she'd come such a long way just to see them, when something begun to shake down deep in the mountain.

Levy shook along with it, unable to escape the rumble that was quickly growing to a violent tremor. She lurched sideways, catching herself on a heavy column. Even that jittered beneath her throbbing shoulder and she looked up, eyes wild as she searched for signs of a cave-in.

Something soft but strong latched onto her wrist and Levy looked down to find the creature scowling at her with small dark eyes.

"You need to leave," he – the voice was undeniably male and far too deep for someone so small – told her firmly. " _Now_."

"But I-" Levy tried as the tremor began to slow.

The bear ignored her, dragging her back the way she'd come. He was strong for someone so small too.

"N-now wait just a minute!" Levy found her voice, dragging her heels and getting a quick jerk in response. "I didn't come all this way to get half frozen, half starved, and completely worn out for nothing! I came for the books and I'm not leaving until I-"

Another tremor cut her off, but this one was different. A sound like steel sliding over steel carried over the thundering rumble of earthen bones shaking. Metal plates slid against each other in a cascade, a whole army's worth of armor clashing together. A fist gripped Levy's heart and refused to let go. "Wha-what is that?!" She had to scream and even then could barely hear her own voice.

The bear's wings abruptly evaporated with a magic-laden _poof_ and he dropped to the ground, dragging Levy down to a crouch. He narrowed his wide eyes at her. "Unless you plan on staying here for the rest of your life you will leave the way you came and forget everything you've seen."

Levy finally freed her wrist from his small paw. "And why would I do that, huh? It took me forever just to open the door!"

She was shouting at the top of her lungs...because there was no other way to be heard. The tremor wasn't dying out like the one before. It was getting stronger, louder, _closer_. It sounded like an army of metal machimas marching on them, climbing up the wall, drowning out her thoughts-

A blast of air blew upward and poured between the columns, hitting Levy in the chest with all the tender force of a war hammer. She fell backwards, somehow managing not to hit her head on the hard stone. Levy lay very still, gasping, arms held over her head as something...impossible rose up the central shaft of the mountain.

She couldn't see all of it at once it was so large, but what she could see, Levy couldn't believe. A bulk she couldn't comprehend, covered in a gleaming steely hide. Forearms as thick as century-old trees, scarred despite their heavy armor, and ending in claws that put the tallest men to shame.

And red. The red of a furnace burning, seeping out between the scales of its chest, its neck, raising fire in its eyes.

It saw her.

Levy couldn't understand – _wouldn't_ understand what was happening. Because it was impossible.

 _This isn't-_ her brain stuttered. _This can't be!_

But the heat, the sound, the _smell_ of the furnace building to a roar-

 _The dragon's still alive!_


	2. Dragon's Keeping

Wow! I forgot how heady it is when you start a new story and people like it! :D Your reviews were amazing! Thanks everybody so much for not just your encouragement but your excitement to see what happens! Yay!

So here's chapter two, and can I just say how much I love Lily? Because I do. Just so much. ;3

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Hoarded

-Two-

Dragon's Keeping

Red eyes burned into her.

Levy couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Her quill was still gripped in her hand, but without a plan it was useless. _She_ was useless.

 _Like a princess in a tower._

The stray thought snapped Levy out of her paralysis and she pulled in a deep breath just as the bear spoke. "Now Gajeel, think before-"

" _ **Thief**_..."

The word rolled out of his wide, fang-filled mouth on a wave of heat that could have melted glaciers. The smell was oppressive, stealing Levy's breath again, but it wasn't the fetid stench of decaying meat she'd always imagined. Instead it was molten copper and steel, of hot iron and liquid metal trapped in a too small space.

It so distracted her that it took Levy too long to comprehend what the dragon had called her. "Wait, I'm not-"

Sound jumbled in her throat as the dragon slammed first one foot, then the other, on the free space between columns. He could have skewered her with the bare tip of a single claw.

Levy scrambled behind the pillar, heart starting to pound as she heaved in oxygen with a vengeance. _What- what do I do? There's a dragon! St-staring at me. I was just looking for books!_

Then it struck her.

She'd been looking books.

Books that the dragon thought she'd come to take.

 _Stealing...from a dragon...is a very..._ _ **bad**_ _idea..._

All the stories agreed on that too.

"Why are you hiding, thief?" That voice rolled through the stone around her, snagging on the creature's teeth as it went. "Didn't expect I'd be home?" The curl of sarcasm made Levy frown.

"Didn't expect you were still _alive_ ," she called out before she could thick better of it.

A sound like rocks starting to fall down the mountain made Levy shudder before she realized it had just snorted at her. "Because grave robbing is so much better."

She scowled at the pillar, too afraid to stare at _him_ directly. "Well I didn't think you'd be buried here."

A head the size of the palace stable leaned around and pinned her in the spotlight of one, great eye. "And what _did_ you expect, short stuff?" he growled at her, upper lip curling over his teeth.

Levy nearly swallowed her own tongue. She sat there, shivering on the floor, so dumbstruck she couldn't even comprehend his question.

"You idiot!"

Levy jumped, leaving the floor entirely only to meet it again hard, scraping both her hands and sending an ache up her backside to her spine. She looked around, finding the bear, but he wasn't talking to her.

"She wouldn't have seen you if you'd stayed down there." He narrowed his orange-hued eyes and crossed his short arms over his chest. "The one day you don't waste all your time sleeping..." he grumbled.

The dragon narrowed his eyes at the bear and Levy held her breath for the poor creature, who looked so at ease she started to wonder at his intelligence.

"Shaddup Lily." Levy blinked at the archaic word, a perfect match to the out-of-place spell on the door. "And what're you defending a thief for anyway? I don't like humans touching my stuff." His head swung to Levy again, black smoke wafting out between his teeth. "Don't touch my stuff!"

Levy rocked back an inch, gasping through her nose. She would have curled into a ball and never moved again if his sheer childishness hadn't made her pause. "I- I didn't-" She felt the words leave her throat, but the roar of her pulse in her ears made them sound like a mumble.

The dragon huffed, enveloping her head in black smoke. Levy coughed, swinging one noodle arm to try and clear the air. When that didn't work, she rolled to her feet and stood up, keeping the column between her and the metal-plated dragon. Her head barely cleared the haze, and she blinked back tears as the acrid cloud stung her eyes and throat. She didn't pay as much attention as she should have to their argument as she waved away the cloud, dispelling it with a small breeze.

The bear was talking when she started listening again. "-overreacting Gajeel. Have you even thought this a quarter of the way through? It won't end well."

"Well it won't end any better if we don't do anything either, will it? _Something's_ got to be done about this." The dragon narrowed his eyes and Levy felt every inch of her skin prickle. "I won't stand for this sort of thing."

The bear rolled his eyes. "And when you forget to feed her? Or lose her between your scrap heaps? It will be ten times worse."

The dragon forgot Levy again and snorted at the bear, more smoke rolling out to swallow his small body. The bear just unfurled his winds and flew above the suffocating cloud, getting an annoyed rumble from the beast.

"Well do _you_ got any bright ideas? Knowing what'll happen if those dent-heads in Oak Town find out we're still up here? You want to deal with _that_ outcome, huh?"

The bear kept his mouth shut.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He lifted one of his clawed forearms from the side of the central shaft to leave, bits of stone falling free to tumble down to the bottom. The dragon swung his far wing out, testing the distance, but the gust it created was still enough to push Levy back a step.

The bear flew over the edge, straight up to the dragon's eyes, forcing him to look at him slightly cross-eyed. "Fine!" he shouted, pointing a stern paw at him. "But don't expected me to feed her when _you_ forget she's still here!"

Levy inched forward around the pillar to hear better and saw the dragon roll his eyes. "Let her feed herself then cuz I'm not gonna do it. Just keep her out of my way."

A very bad feeling pinched at Levy's stomach. They were talking about her. About feeding and walking and _keeping_ her like she was- was some sort of pet!

 _He's not going to let me leave..._

Her feet were moving before the thought had fully settled. She tripped over her still dripping boots, stubbed her toe against a divot in the stone and went crashing to the ground, catching her weight on her already bleeding palms. She didn't feel the pain as she pushed herself up again, scrambling for the exit. All she felt was the cold seeping across her chest and that fist around her heart _squeezing_ as she ran as fast as she could for the still-open door.

...

Panther Lily watched the woman catch herself before running past the line of support columns on nimble legs, her bright blue hair easy to follow in the dark of the unused passage. Her sudden desperation was a palpable weight in the air, but he didn't try to stop her. She would need to see the truth for herself.

He sighed, already knowing the door was closed and sealed by a magic he couldn't touch even if he was so inclined, and then scowled up at Gajeel. They'd been friends a long time, longer than most human lifetimes, but his patience with the iron dragon was wearing dangerously thin.

"There," he snapped at him. "Now see what you've done? Has all your sulking killed off whatever brain cells you once had?"

Gajeel fixed his red eyes on him, a growl vibrating in his chest, but Lily's fur didn't even twitch. "Say that to my face, cat."

"I just did. Or are you deaf as well as dumb?" Lily told him, then threw out a small arm as his frustration demanded some kind of outlet. "Did you forget this is what you keep me around for? To handle nosy treasure hunters and thrill seekers? Just because we've gone undisturbed the last few decades doesn't mean I've lost all of my professional capability. I had the situation handled!"

He showed the tips of his own white teeth in indignation before he could stop himself. Embarrassed by the unexpected slip, Panther Lily drew himself up to his full two foot, three inch height, and crossed his arms over his chest again. He would be calm, collected. Because every celestial spirit in the sky knew that Gajeel was incapable of it.

The heat rose in the enclosed shaft, finding little outlet through the pillars to the spiral walkway. Gajeel hadn't been this active in a long while and the heat was pouring out between his scales like he'd swallowed an active furnace, and with the outside air turning more and more frigid, Lily had closed the ventilation shafts to try and keep comfortably warm as the cold summer air turned winter-frigid. With sweat starting to make his fur gather and stick under his coat collar, he wished he'd waited a few more days.

"Did you even think that she might not be _alone_?" he pressed when Gajeel didn't do anything but fume, smoke drifting up from his nostrils behind Lily like the precursor to a volcano boiling over. "That someone outside will miss her and come looking for her? If you'd waited five more minutes I could have gotten her out and she wouldn't have been any wiser to your existence."

Gajeel eyed him, suspiciously quiet. Lily could count from memory how many times he'd heard the dragon admit he was wrong, but mostly he just sat there quietly until he could think of a way to change the subject.

Lily wasn't about to give him one, not if they had to literally live with the consequence this time. "And what about when she tries to escape? She will try it, any sensible person would. How far will you go to keep her here, huh?"

Gajeel didn't speak. He would have looked away if Lily hadn't all but invaded his line of sight.

"You don't run away," he finally mumbled.

"I chose to be here, you idiot. That's a big difference."

"Yeah, well," the dragon drawled, wings rippling in a draconian shrug. "She'll just have to learn to live with it then, won't she?"

The fur between Lily's shoulders rose as his frustration grew. "Don't pretend to be callous."

"I'm not pretending." He let go of the wall and dropped, wings arched out from his back. He fell in a spiral, gliding back down to his nest at the very bottom with more grace then all his armor would imply.

Lily followed him, flapping hard to catch up with the iron dragon. "It will only get worse the longer you keep her. Perhaps it would be best if you tried to explain-"

Gajeel snorted, a dry and sarcastic sound. "Explain what? That she can't tell anyone there's one dragon left in the world because every wannabe dragon slayer will turn out to try and run me through? And then all those parrot-voiced minstrels will start screeching about it, but hey, that'll be your problem since I'll be a head on a castle wall. Tch. Pathetic."

Lily wasn't sure if he meant the knights or himself, but decided it wasn't important at the moment. "You can't just keep her here. She won't stay," he tried again.

The metal ridges above Gajeel's red eyes twitched together. "She can't _leave_." He craned his neck around to snap at him. "What d'ya think will happen when itsy bitsy up there runs back screaming she was almost kidnapped by a real live dragon, besides the knights and the two-bit ballads? There's always someone that believes the crackpots, Lil. Word'll get around."

Lily closed his eyes, worry etched deep between his eyes. "I know," he muttered.

"Once it does it'll be a matter of time before the old man hears."

"I know," he repeated.

"Moving's not an option anymore either-"

"I _know_ ," Lily stressed. He slit one eye and peered at the dragon as they entered the shadowed depths of the nest. "That doesn't mean I have to like it."

Gajeel snorted. "Then don't, but quit yer whinin'."

He landed with an armor-plated crunch on the built-up section of the floor where he usually slept, adjusting his wings before folding them against his sides. Much to Lily's surprise, he didn't turn around and go back to sleep, but stretched his forelegs out, twisting so that his spine stretched and popped.

"Look, do whatever ya want, Lil," he said as he straightened himself out and looked around at the lower most level where he lived. "You know what's at stake. Feed her, walk her, braid daisies in each other's hair, I don't care. Just don't let her go runnin' her mouth."

He stepped off the dais, his metal scales sliding against each other in a rhythmic scrape-and-slide as he made his way deeper underground. Lily stayed where he was, hovering above the built-up mound. He was as curious as any cat, and Gajeel liked to think he ran this roost, but they kept out of each other's way more often than not. Gajeel stayed out of Lily's space, and the Exceed had always repaid the favor, so Lily didn't try to follow him now.

He hadn't moved though when Gajeel turned back and called over his shoulder, "And keep her out of my way!"

...

He found the woman not long after, curled against the base of the main entrance, the one that had been sealed tight since before Lily had come to live under the mountain. Her small light had gone out, and even Lily's feline vision couldn't make her out in the complete blackness, but he could hear her. Her cries were uneven and muffled, her face covered by her arms or her hands, something to hide her from the eyes and the smoke and the teeth.

Lily paused. The teeth _did_ take time to get used to.

He reached out and found her in the dark, touching a paw to her arm, startling her. She shrunk in on herself, arms rising up, and a pinprick of yellow light flared to life at the end of her hand. Lily caught a brief glimpse of her face, wet and red, and some kind of blue feather clutched tight in her hand, before his eyes closed against the bright light. It wasn't so glaring when he opened them again two seconds later.

 _Fear_ did not adequately describe what he saw in her eyes. Or maybe it was just too many fears to easily name. Fear of the dark, if the way she clutched at her glowing feather was anything to judge by, fear she would never climb out of it, that she would never see the sky or the sun or know anything but the inside of this dark and depressing mountain. That she would never see her loved ones again. That she would be trapped down here, alone, forever.

With Gajeel.

All her fears were rising up at once, drowning out her sense and turning her into this red-eyed, weeping prisoner trying to make herself as small as possible in the dark.

 _She knows too much,_ Lily thought. _And she's smart enough that it terrifies her._

She tried to breathe through her nose with no success and wiped at the wetness streaming from it and her eyes. "I-i-it's ya-you." He could barely understand her. "Y-you live w-wi-with-" Her eyes were drawn to the end of the main pathway, where they could just see the glow of the torches Lily hadn't finished lighting. Faint scuffles could be heard even way up here as Gajeel occupied himself down at the bottom.

Lily opened his mouth to tell her that he wasn't so bad once you got to know him, and then closed it quickly. That was a stupid thing to say to someone your partner had just decided to hold captive for the rest of her life.

The little woman didn't see him hesitate in the dim glow of her blue feathered quill. Her eyes overflowed and she quickly wiped them, for all the good it did. "I- I just wanted to read the ba-books," she said through her sobs.

Yes, she'd said something about books before. "I know," Lily told her. He wondered how many more repetitions he had left in him.

"I did-didn't even w-want to take them with me! They'd crumble!" Her eyes were wide and earnest.

Well, he hadn't known that. Lily patted her hand. "How...unselfish of you. For a thief."

A wet, mucus-riddled laugh choked out of her. It slowed her sobbing, and for a long time she sat there, huddled against the wall, sniffing every once in a while. She couldn't stop shaking though. He could feel it in her fingers where she gripped his paw.

"He's a _dragon_ ," he eventually heard her mutter thickly.

Lily nodded in the dark. "Yep."

"But- but all the dragons are dead. _Everybody_ knows they're all _dead_!" From the sound of her voice, she still half believed it herself.

Lily closed his eyes, the darkness of his eyelids not much different than that of the mountain, and sighed deeply through his nose. Possible scenarios of the near future ran through his head – legions of knights, out to defend people from the dragon, families of runaways crying the dragon must have stolen their children away, thieves and rogues – real ones, not pocket-sized, book-loving, possible-librarians that thought to match their magic quills to the color of their hair – slipping past the cracks and selling the secret ways in and out of the nest to those with the deepest pockets.

And it always ended with black wings coming to overshadow them all...

Lily squeezed her fingers, a shiver of his own running down his spine and fluffing out his tail. At least the dark hid that as well.

"I know that too."


	3. 3 Letter Word for Long-Tailed Bear

Boo! Thanks for all the favs and follows and reviews. I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. :3

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Hoarded

-Three-

A Three Letter Word for Long-Tailed Bear

When Levy woke, the talking bear was gone and she was somewhere warm.

Too warm actually. Her face felt bright red and strands of her blue hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks. Levy squirmed in the hollow space she'd made for herself, trying to find cool air only to end up buried in pillows.

Levy jerked herself onto her back with a frown. Her nose brushed against whatever was above her; it was soft, and smelled recently washed.

 _Blankets_ , her still waking mind mumbled. They must have gotten wrapped completely around her during the night. Or was it day? _What time is it...?_

Levy finally found the edge of her cocoon and popped her head out. She was lying sideways on a wide mattress so soft that she'd sunk into the center like a hammock. The room was mostly dark, the only light coming from embers sleeping in a brazier across the room. Red light washed up over the low ceiling, but wasn't strong enough to show anything more than the general shape of the room.

She scanned it quickly...then sighed in relief and hung her head over the side of the bed. Her heart was thumping a little harder against her chest. _It's not nearly big enough for- for that_ thing _to fit._

"Ah, you're finally awake."

Levy shrieked and jumped straight up in the air, eyes shooting open as she left the bed altogether only to miss it on the way down and landing in a heap on the floor. Her legs were thrown over her head, tied up in the blanket she hadn't managed to escape. _Get up, get up, get up!_ she screamed at herself as she tried to tear her feet free enough to run.

A small, darkly furred head leaned over her, the ember light casting his face in warm relief. "Aren't you lively in the morning," he commented.

Levy sagged against the hard floor, more mountain rock judging by the uneven surface jabbing at her through her tunic. Someone had taken her coat, probably when they'd moved her in here. "It's just you," she breathed out in relief.

He nodded his round head. "Just me," he repeated, understanding completely. He raised a skinny eyebrow at her. "Are you all right down there?"

She was glad he only meant her fall, because if she had to explain how she felt about...about everything else, she would only wind up crying herself asleep again.

 _No more tears, Lev_ , she told herself. _There_ _ **is**_ _a way out of here and you_ _ **will**_ _find it. But not if you just sit around bawling all the time._

So she nodded sharply at the small creature leaning over her, and then started the long process of untangling her legs and sitting up. Being an over achiever, Levy even made it up to the side of the bed, bracing herself with both hands as she sunk almost a foot into its softness.

She looked up when she had and found the bear watching her carefully. _Probably afraid I'll start crying all over him again_ , she guessed.

Levy forced herself to smile at him, finding she wasn't as out of practice as she'd feared. She'd learned early that there were times when a believable smile worked better than a shield. "I'm fine, Mis-tah-sa- Sir Bear. Really." She held up both hands and fixed the tremor threatening her lower lip.

Both his eyebrows rose this time, and he crossed his arms over his bare chest. "I'm a cat."

Levy blinked, smile wiped clean off her face. Now that she looked, she saw the whiskers on his cheeks, the small, neat, triangular nose that looked far more feline than ursine.

It also explained the long tail.

She felt her face turn red with embarrassment. An honest, if not self-deprecating, chuckle slipped out ahead of her. "Sorry, Sir Cat."

The cat eyed her another moment, and then his three-shaped mouth relaxed into a small smile. He held out a paw. "Panther Lily," he told her, "but most just call me Lily. No sirs necessary."

"Levy McGarden," Levy told him in turn as she shook his paw.

"McGarden..." he murmured, the 'r' rolling around his mouth for a moment. "Fioran, are you?"

Levy felt a muscle in her cheek jump. She didn't expect anyone to recognize her this far from Magnolia, much less her mother's maiden name, but she always got nervous when people remarked on it. _Why did Mother have to have such an unusual name?_

"Um, my grandfather was from Fiore, but I was born in Fable." Try as she might she could never completely hide her accent. Best to just own up to it so they didn't ask too many questions. "And you? I've- I've never seen, um, seen a, ah..."

He eyed her, trying to hide his smirk. "A flying, talking, long-tailed bear before?" he teased her.

Levy hunched her shoulders around her ears, hoping the low light hid her flush. "Or cat," she added with a lopsided grin.

He inclined his head, but Levy thought he appreciated the distinction. "I'm not surprised. We Exceed have never been terribly outgoing. One of the few things we have in common with dragons, I'm afraid. Are you hungry?"

Levy blinked at the sudden shift, still caught up in the questions flooding her head. What were Exceed? And did they all live with dragons? Did that mean there were more dragons still alive and hiding in other mountains? Levy hoped not. "Um...yeah, starved actually. What do you have? Or do I, um, not want to know?"

"Nothing raw and wriggling, I assure you." But then he shrugged one small shoulder before leading her into the next room. "Or at least nothing that cannot be quickly fixed with a good roasting. We even have peanut butter." He sounded quite proud of that, but then most people in these parts had never heard of peanuts before, since they had to be shipped in from Bosco.

"I'm allergic," Levy told him as she stood and trailed after Lily.

He swung his arms a little wider. "More for me then."

He walked through the bedroom's only exit, a veiled off archway bored through the rock. Beyond it was a common room not much different than what she'd seen in little village taverns, although the furniture was nicer, if just as worn, and the downsized bar set against the opposite wall was meant to serve only one or two instead of twenty. Cool blue and forest green banners were draped along the walls to try and soften the dark rock, and some rather fine, if threadbare, tapestries showing floating islands and unicorns and lions lounging near waterfalls peeked out here and there, like half-seen animals peering out from dense foliage.

Levy wasn't sure if she felt more relieved or homesick. Wide blue skies rolling over emerald green forests as far as the eye could see. If the dragon – _Gajeel_ , she might as well use his name, he wasn't going anywhere – got his way, she'd never see either of them again.

She shook herself, hands fisting at her sides, just as Lily called out, "Please, sit. I wasn't sure what you liked, so I brought some of everything. There's more than enough to split between us."

Levy looked around and found him brightening a lamp on the wall. He gestured behind him at the ring of fat, overstuffed chairs surrounding a low table brimming with enough plates to feed the palace.

Her eyes landed on a round tureen filled with thick white soup dotted with seafood. "Is that Hargeon stew?" Her stomach rumbled without her permission.

Lily chuckled and nodded as he flew to the next lamp in line. "Go ahead and help yourself," he told her.

Levy did, with gusto, after folding her legs up under her and wedging herself right up against the low table, a heavy armchair at her back. She filled her bowl to the brim, then pulled a little bit of everything else onto a plate after she ate two dumplings to make room for it.

"It's almost cheery in here with some light," she muttered around a mouthful when Lily finally joined her on the opposite side of the table. Now that she could see, she saw there was an averagely tall table on the other side of the room, heavily inlaid with a mosaic of pearl and jade, currently serving as a weapons rack and surrounded by six almost-matching, just as ornately designed chairs. One was gilded in what was probably real gold, and at least four had the tell-tale embellishments of master craftsman Sirvoy Crazen.

 _I thought Mother was the only one with a full set_.

She continued turning her head as she chewed, Lily folding up his wings and flopping down onto the stool sitting across from her, putting them on eye level. There were three curtained off archways, each set in a different wall; the dark blue one she'd just woken up in, a dark gray one with red accents, and a gauzy brown one neatly camouflaged against the mountain rock.

"Where does that one go?" Levy asked, flicking a finger at the all but invisible door before popping something green and salty into her mouth.

"Back to the main corridor. Most everything is connected directly to it, so if you get lost, don't panic," Panther Lily told her, his eyes fixed on the neatly sorted food on his plate. He pulled a knife and two-pronged fork, both small enough to suit his small paws, out from beneath the napkin and started to cut his meat into neat little cubes. Levy found herself straightening up and wiping her mouth on a napkin before picking up her own, a bit red-faced. _He's so polite._..

"While we're on the subject," Lily said after he'd chewed and swallowed, "there are a few things you should know before you go poking around looking for escape routes."

Levy opened her mouth to argue, and then quickly closed it again when he gave her a look daring her to deny it. She looked away, trying not to pout, and ripped another scallop off her pronged spoon.

"The lowest level is off limits, for the obvious reason," he continued. "Gajeel has been in a mood lately. I wouldn't provoke him, if I were you."

Levy shuddered. She put down her spoon, suddenly feeling more nauseas than hungry. "You'll get no argument from me," she muttered. "If I can get out of here without ever seeing him again, that'll be fine by me." She stabbed a vegetable with a scowl.

Lily nodded, not insulting her intelligence by telling her not to bother. "There's a whole mess of spells protecting the mountain itself from everything from mice to meteorites, so please don't try blasting your way out. It'll leave a mess." One he'd have to clean up judging by the look he shot her. "There's plenty of food, and you've no need to worry about rationing it, and if you need anything for your accommodations, tell me and I'll see what I can do."

"A map back to Oak Town would be nice," she muttered.

He gave her a 'nice try' kind of smile, but only asked, "Do you have any questions?"

"Yes." Her response was immediate as she braced her forearm on the table and leaned forward. "Why are you defending him? You're trapped inside here too, aren't you? You must have found a way out by now, or made one or something. Or is it not done yet? Do you need help?" She leaned forward a little more and, knowing it was a sensitive subject, whispered, "Did he curse you? Is that why you can't leave yet?"

Lily's ears flicked in genuine surprise. Then he laughed, the sound booming faintly between the tapestries. "My only curse is a questionable taste in friends," he told her, smiling wide enough to show teeth that matched the white of his muzzle. "And I can leave any time I wish. And while Gajeel _does_ use magic, it affects himself more than other people. That does remind me, though – he lives off iron filings more than anything, so don't let him threaten to eat you. Smack him on the nose if you have to. He's insufferable enough when people aren't cowering in fear of him."

He rolled his eyes, but Levy could only stare. Her heart tripped over something and then went _bidda-bidda-bidda_ at a quick pace. "How- how can you stand this?" she squeaked. "Tiptoeing around him all the time? Training him not to _eat_ people-"

"Training him not to _threaten_ to eat people. I told you about the iron filings, didn't I?" He squinted his large eyes as if he couldn't quite remember.

Levy shook her head, blue brows crashing together over her dark eyes. "You're one of the nicest, politest people I've ever met. Why are you down here with him?"

Lily shrugged and picked up his cup. "Because I'm his partner," he answered simply, then took a long drink. "Besides," he said as he put it back down, inching aside the soup ladle to make room, "someone has to take care of the big idiot."

Levy leaned back against the foot of the armchair, beyond exasperated. "You take care of a twenty-ton, metal-eating dragon with a dubious sense of humor hiding out at the bottom of a mountain that nobody knows about." She raised a hand and let it drop. "Except, now, for me."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Pretty much, yes." He ate another piece of meat, then jabbed his knife at her. "And I should get hazard pay for that so-called wit of his. Has the sense of humor of a kitten." He glanced up at her over the table. "You'll want to be on the lookout for that as well."

Levy covered her face with both hands and threw her head back against the chair with a groan. "Look, Lily-" She flung herself forward and nearly planted her elbow in her soup bowl when she leaned both arms on the crowded table, "-all I want to do is get out of here. What does the big baby want? An apology? A tithe? I don't have much but I can get more if it'll really get me out of here just- just tell me what he wants and I'll do it."

She hated the desperation burning like a poker against her sternum, but she hadn't escaped her own tower world just to wind up buried alive under some mountain.

Lily eyed her for a good long, moment, so long that Levy started to regret her outburst. She shifted, looking down at her fingers in her lap.

"It's not an issue of...payment, Miss McGarden-"

Levy raised her eyebrows at him. "If you aren't Sir Cat, then I'm certainly not Miss McGarden," she chided him. "I'm only Levy."

Lily nodded, but remained solemn. "Levy," he agreed, "you strike me as a clever young woman. Think it through and tell me what will happen if you were to return to Oak Town and tell them you saw a living, breathing dragon with your own eyes."

It wasn't exactly a trick question. "They'd pat me on the head, say 'you poor child', and ship me off to the nearest asylum." Her eyes lit up and she inched forward, beaming. "See? I've got just as much reason to keep this secret too! I've seen those places. I've got no desire to see them again-"

Lily held up one paw, and Levy bit her lip, hope dwindling just as suddenly. "Someone always believes the crackpots," he told her with a dark humor she didn't understand. He blinked, and was his reserved self again as he looked at her. "And then? Continue from there."

"Well..." Levy looked up, needing to think this time. "If someone really did believe – and I'm not convinced anyone would – then...I guess there would be a mob."

His smile was a little easier to understand this time, the tips of his fangs just hidden by his lower lip. "Pitchforks against dragon scales? Please."

"Knights then." Levy frowned, lifting her chin. "Royal ones, with guild wizards behind them. Scores of them."

The black cat nodded this time. "The crown protects the head it sits on," he recited.

Levy knew it well. "That's why its crest is kept sharp."

Lily's eyes flicked to her in surprise. He was obviously bursting with his own curiosity, but Levy didn't say anything more, and in the end Lily didn't ask.

"And we both know what will happen once the knights and the guild wizards arrive." He raised his glass. "Mayhem, maiming, and mortal wounds. One way or another, Gajeel will end up dead."

He fell silent and Levy took the time to think this through, her brow wrinkling as she shifted her legs under the table. She tilted her head one way, frown deepening, and leaned forward.

"I don't buy it."

Lily faltered. "Excuse me?"

She chewed on her lower lip, thinking, and then finally shook her head, blue hair shaking into her face. Levy shoved it back with a scoff, and sorted through her pockets for her headband.

"I don't buy it," she said again as she pulled it out and slipped it over her bird's nest of hair, only a few tendrils escaping to frame her face. She tied it tight and then propped her chin on her fist and scowled at the cat. "You expect me to believe that _that_ -" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at the exit, "-is afraid of a couple of knights and spell slingers? Even a whole army would have trouble taking him down, much less finding him if he flew off into the sunset or whatever." She shook her head again, leaning back. "No way. Besides, he'd probably just squash them flat without even noticing..." she grumbled, remembering the size of those forearms braced against the spiral corridor.

Panther Lily jumped up on his stool and jabbed a stubby finger at her. If his manners had been anything less then what they were, Levy thought he would have hissed at her. "Gajeel may be foul mouthed and short tempered, but he has saved more of your kind than any legion of crown warriors. You don't have to like him, but you will watch what you say of him in my hearing."

Levy had pushed herself back into the chair, eyes wide at Lily's vehemence. She held up both her hands. "All right," she said, "all _right_. I'm...I'm sorry, Lily." She only half meant it, more sorry for upsetting Lily than for what she'd actually said, but she didn't know how long she would be trapped here. Lily could be the only friend she'd make in a long time, certainly the only one she was willing to talk with down here. She didn't want to alienate him right off the bat.

The end of his tail was still twice its normal size, and Levy squirmed under his sharp eyes until he closed them, and with effort set his anger away from him.

"I...have other duties to attend to," he told her stiffly. "Wander as you like along the main corridor, and try and keep from trouble. Also-" He swept a paw at the room behind him with the gray and red curtain, "-I ask that you stay out of my room. I prefer to keep my privacy."

Levy's eyes flicked to the curtain, mildly curious, but he wasn't asking anything ridiculous. She nodded. "Of course."

Lily bobbed his round head, one ear swiveling toward the main exit. "Excuse me," he muttered, and then hopped off the stool and padded out of the room, still a little stiff.

 _Well that went well_ , Levy thought as she leaned back against the chair with an exasperated sigh. _Way to make an ally, Lev. At this rate you'll be out of here in no time..._


	4. Alphabet Soup

Hey lovely readers! Thank you for all your reviews and favs! I feel so happy when I see those alerts in my inbox, and I'm glad you've enjoyed the story so far. I hope you like this newest installment too. I had a lot of fun thinking up the different insults... .

And to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year - Woo! You can do it! And if you're (way) behind like me, well then Procrastinators of the Month, unite! Maybe if we get enough chisels we can break a hole through the writer's block? x) Good luck!

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Hoarded

Four: Alphabet Soup

Lily obviously expected her to try and escape before the day was out, and Levy saw no reason to disappoint him.

"He thinks a few more spells are going to keep me in here? Ha!" Levy's hard laugh rebounded off the stone walls as she left the torchlight and stalked the last fifty or so feet to the darkened entrance. "I thought dragons were supposed to be clever, or did he forget I tore through his last seals like they were tissue paper!" She stopped and turned around as she dug around in her pack for her quill, shouting back the way she'd come, "Including that sad attempt at old Mythrian, I might add!"

Levy thought she heard a sour grumble roll out from the central shaft, but ignored the way the hair on her arms stood on end as she found her quill tucked behind her ear.

"Ah-hah!" she uttered to herself, putting a little too much magic behind her light spell and cursing as she almost blinded herself.

The deep vibration rolling out of the earth sounded more like a laugh this time.

Levy grit her teeth, refusing to acknowledge what she still hoped was her own overactive imagination. She spun on her heel and stormed up to the door, blocky script spell shining out behind her, illuminating the stark metal surface. She stopped a yard away, far enough to crane her neck back and take in its mammoth height with her arms crossed over her chest. Magic poured out of its smooth surface - Levy felt it with her wizard's sense like her skin felt heat from a fire.

 _This_ , she thought as she fumbled her gale force reading glasses out of her tunic for a better look, _is going to be harder than I thought._

She got her glasses on and looked at the door again, then just about screamed when she saw the new enchantments.

 _You've got to be kidding me!_ She just barely managed to keep the words in. No reason to encourage the brute after all.

Spells covered the surface like cobwebs, laced through and over each other in a distracting maze of glyphs. And worse, they _stuck_. To the metal, each other, her. Levy tried to pull one aside with her quill to see beneath it and it stuck to the nib. She tried to pull it off, but it only clung to her finger like quickly hardening sap.

She shook herself free and realized it had already hardened inside the nib, making it completely useless as a channel for her solid script magic. A frustrated, growling shriek climbed out of her throat as she stuffed her quill back in her supply pack. Levy stormed back to the spiral corridor, and leaned over the edge. "That was my favorite pen!" she shouted down the shaft.

He definitely laughed at her that time.

She made herself return to the door at a slower pace, taking the time to think. Much as she hated to admit it, those sealing spells were a whole lot tougher than the old brittle ones she'd broken through to get in here. They would take time to unravel, even more since using her quill would only jam it up with his...well, she hoped it was only magic. If anything else dragon-y was mixed in, it might corrode the nib completely.

 _It'll be more useful as a hair ornament than a quill_ , she thought with a frown. _I'll just have to use my fingers for now. I can shield them better than a metal nib anyway._

Levy sat down cross-legged on the cold dirt and got to work.

There was definitely something other than human magic laced through the seal, and it didn't take long to eat through the magic GLOVES spell she'd wrapped around her fingers. She didn't let that stop her though, and sat huddled there, sorting out glyphs at a painstaking pace. But when her fingers started to twitch so bad she couldn't write, she realized she had to stop. At least for now.

"Ow..." Levy cringed as she flexed her right hand. An ache had settled in the joints of her knuckles, and the tips of her fingers felt numb. She'd just thought it was the cold seeping in from the outside at first, but then the tingling started, like pins pricking down into her nerve endings, and Levy realized it felt more like the blood was slowly being pushed out of her fingers.

"I'm not giving up," Levy told herself as she sat there cradling her dominate hand to her chest. "I just...need a little break. That's all."

Disappointment still bowed her shoulders and she whined a little as she hung her head. "So much for Plan A," she muttered. "Now what's B?"

She looked down at her half-numb right hand. "Well, first I have to get feeling back in my hand, so that's Plan Aa I guess. A-1? Oh..."

Levy turned around and shuffled back toward the warmth of the torchlight, keeping her right arm close to her side and slinging her pack over her other shoulder. Disappointment threatened to bloom into full blow depression and she wrestled with it as she passed through the gloom, her only distraction the growing tingle in her hand as the feeling slowly inched its way back in.

"There's got to be, rmm, got to be more than one way out so I just, hmf, just have to find a, a back door or an un-underground river or something-"

"Search all ya like short stack! There ain't no cracks in my nest big enough for even someone small as _you_ to slip through!"

The dragon's taunts barreled up the sides of the central shaft, mocking laughter following close behind like an armory being tossed on its head. Levy leaned past a pillar with a scowl.

"Watch me you arrogant wyrm!"

"Oi! Watch your mouth, ankle-biter or I'll-"

"What? Eat me? I hear you're practically a vegetarian!"

Black smoke billowed up like smokestacks, and even from this high up, Levy swore she saw twin points of red glowering up at her. "Lily!" the dragon bellowed. "What're you tellin' her?!"

Lily's voice boomed out somewhere between the two of them, but he didn't answer Gajeel. "Why are you two screaming while I'm trying to work?" he demanded instead. "And what did I say about provoking?"

Levy ducked back slightly, thinking he meant her. But then the dragon was yelling again. "Yeah, well, you also said she was a lady, but all I see is a smart mouthed, trouble mongering midget that doesn't know how to keep her big nose out of my business!"

Levy felt her hair frizz away from her neck, caught in a haze of uncontrolled magical energy. She would have felt embarrassed at her slip in control if she weren't so furious with him. "Belly-dragging reptile!" she shot back.

Red eyes burned up at her. "Knuckle-dragging thief!"

"Walking scrap heap!"

"Silverfish incubator!"

"Rust-eaten beast!"

"Spawn of a drunken pixie!"

"Soft scaled _tomtarra_!"

His mouth gaped open at the ancient insult. "You- you little-" the dragon sputtered.

" _ENOUGH_!"

Lily's voice flew between them like a hammer through glass, sending shards of mounting tension every which way. Levy thought she saw his head turn between the two of them, but it was impossible to tell in the haze of gray smoke filling the shaft. "Go find something else to do, both of you! Or so help me, you will be the _least_ of each other's problems!"

Levy wasn't sure what the tiny black cat could do to a dragon with a steel hide only slighter thinner than his obviously thick skull, but the dragon huffed before clanking his way farther into the lower level. She could just hear him muttering to himself under the clang and clamor of his exit.

"Levy..." Lily growled in warning.

She scowled down at the floating white specks of his wings, the only part of him she could easily see. "I'm going, I'm _going_. Sheesh..." she grumbled before pushing back from the pillar and leaving the door behind her. The tips of her fingers still burned, but most of the feeling had resettled in her hand again. _Maybe my magic helped to burn it off_ , she thought as she walked, flexing her wrist to test it. It was stiff at first, but returned to normal soon enough.

Not wanting to risk any long-term damage to her hand, now struck Levy as good a time as any to take a look around, especially since nails-for-brains had gone somewhere else to lurk. "Seriously, what does he _do_ all day?" she muttered to herself as she searched the first room she came across. Unlit, small, terribly drafty, completely empty.

 _Not useful_ , she decided, and kept going.

"He can't leave or the stories I heard in Oak Town would be _very_ different," she went on talking to herself as she walked. "And Lily said he didn't want humans knowing he's here, even if I don't for a second think that's all there is to it."

The second room was larger, but flat, with a ceiling so low the tips of Levy's flyaway hair brushed it. A dragon like Gajeel couldn't even fit his snout in here, so she wasn't surprised when she saw armor and weapons small enough to fit an Exceed's smaller paw. "Must be Lily's stuff," she mumbled, hesitating in the doorway as she remembered him asking her not to invade his privacy. Seeing as this wasn't his room, she didn't think it counted, but what was she going to do with a bunch of miniature armor anyway?

"Maybe he was born or hatched down here, or however it is dragons come into the world. Maybe he just never left." Levy stopped in the corridor, brows furrowed as a thought tickled at the back of her mind.

She placed it and started walking again. "No...that doesn't make sense," she realized. "Lily said he'd protected humans, so he must have gone outside _sometime_. And it can't have been in the last century or two either, because Oak Town would remember something like that."

And there was that word, _tomtarra_. He'd recognized it well enough to be insulted.

"That _is_ interesting," Levy murmured as she left a room holding enough tables and chairs to fill a two-story inn. Some of them were antiques, and she made a mental note that maybe she could gauge how long he'd been here if she identified them before moving on.

"The insult's an antique itself," she kept muttering, tapping at her lower lip with her finger. If she remembered right it was Mythrian, like the out-of-place spell, and meant something along the lines of 'not human, not beast, but made up entirely of the worst bits of both'. She'd only read it once or twice herself, in the sections of handwritten testimonies that had survived from the War of the Races.

 _It just slipped out_ , Levy thought to herself as she approached the first room. _I didn't expect him to recognize it. Does it mean anything that he did...?_

She puzzled it over in her mind, surfacing just long enough to peer into the next room. Still unlit, this one was mostly filled with stacks of firewood, and oil and linen for making the torches that lit the spiral corridor. Nothing terribly useful then, at least as far as getting out. "I could light every oil barrel in here and not blow through that much steel, much less those sticky spells, and I don't know enough about the mountain to try going straight through it," Levy muttered to herself.

But maybe if she found a large enough fault line in the outside rock...

Levy found a small, loose rock on the inside of the archway and scratched a small mark on the outer edge before pocketing it and moving on.

 _I guess that'll be Plan B._

...

Plan C struck her the next morning when she woke up with ice in her hair.

"W-w-w-aa-eeee is it sa-so-so c-c-c-c-old?" Her chattering teeth chopped the words into hard consonants as she stumbled out of her room wrapped in as many layers as she could carry.

Even Lily's paws were having trouble with the flint he was trying to use to light the fireplace. His fur was stuck close to his body to keep his body heat in and even then he wore a white jacket with long sleeves.

He half turned and the flint tried to jump out of his paws. "Sorry, Levy," he told her. "Winter has come early, I'm afraid. I'll fix it as soon as I can feel my fingers again." He grumbled the last bit as he picked up the flint.

Levy dropped down next to him on her knees, hiding as much of herself under the different blankets she'd dragged out with her. "He-ere," she chattered, exposing a hand long enough to show her pen grasped in one hand. "Got la-la-lots of p-p-p-practice."

She scratched FIRE over the waiting logs and the words smoldered, then burst into heat and light. The spell itself fizzled quickly, but the kindling stuffed between the heavier logs had already lit up. Soon the logs followed and Levy rubbed the warmth seeping out of the fireplace back into her hands.

She sighed in relief and shed a frost-coated blanket. "That's better," she mumbled.

Lily was sitting on the ground next to her, short legs stretched out. "Yes, indeed. Thank you."

Levy nodded and pulled her inner blankets tighter around her upper body. The fire was growing, but it would take a while before it thawed the room. "It wasn't this cold yesterday," she observed.

"I'm afraid that's my fault," Lily told her. "The place is always warmer when Gajeel is more active, so I reopened some of the ventilation shafts yesterday." He glowered up at the ceiling. "Just in time for an early storm to descend it seems. Slipped right inside." He crossed his arms over his white jacket and narrowed his eyes at the fire. "Woke up to ice all over my tail," he grumbled. One of his ears flicked in annoyance.

Levy bit her cheek to keep from grinning. "Sorry Lily." She leaned back on her hands and said as nonchalantly as she could. "Are they hard to maintain?"

His ear flicked again. "The shafts?" Lily shook his head. "No. They're fairly simple. Also dirty, ice-coated, and terribly tight." His orange eyes slid to peer at her from the corner of his eyes. "If you get stuck, I make no promises to come drag you out."

Levy let her smile out. So he had noticed. "What if I grease myself up beforehand? Would that make it easier?"

He nodded. "Much. Although then you'll probably slide right down to Gajeel's nest like a seal on an ice-flow."

The blood left Levy's face, and she shivered under her blankets. "Aw, why do you have to suck the fun out of everything Lily?" she grumbled.

"It's my job description," he told her with a small smile. "Breakfast?" he offered. "The kitchen will be warmer at any rate."

Levy nodded and scrambled to her feet. She followed him down the spiral to the middle level. The kitchen was a small room, cluttered enough to feel cozy, with the usual big appliances like a wood-burning stove, a dry cabinet, a small table with two chairs, and a water pump gently dripping into its cistern down at the far end of the room. Levy sat down while Lily rummaged around the cabinet, pulling out oats and some dried fruit, before turning around and grabbing a pan from above the stove.

"There's milk in the cold cellar," he told her as he lowered the heavy metal pan, nodding at a stone slab with a handle in the corner. Levy hefted it up with a grunt and more cold air wafted out. _A natural icebox_ , she thought as she pulled the milk bottle out and let the stone lid grind shut.

Lily poured just enough milk into the pan to make the oats thicken into oatmeal before letting it heat on the stove. "I try not to let it go completely out," he told her as he stoked the fire and added more wood before closing the door. "Otherwise there's nowhere warm in the winter."

"Where does the water come from?" Levy asked as she sat down at the table, hoping he didn't say something as finite as a reservoir.

The Exceed grabbed a kiwi fruit from a hanging basket before he joined her. "Two different rivers have their source high up on the mountain. It didn't take much to circumvent one of the branches to feed our water supply." He peeled the fruit with a small knife and bit into a slice. He practically purred.

Steam simmered up from the cooking pot and Levy got up. "Food's done," she announced as she pulled it off the hot burner, popping a dried cranberry in her mouth as Lily brought down the bowls and Levy stumbled upon the silverware. She dumped a mess of fruit into hers before taking the warm bowl back to the table. Levy dragged her spoon through her breakfast, thinking hard. _Rivers..._ If they had brought the water into the keep, then it had to go back out somewhere or she would have woken up in an aquarium instead of an icebox.

She picked up the water pitcher and, like she thought, it was almost empty. She poured the rest of it into her cup, then stood up. "I'll just get some more," she said as she took it over to the water pump.

It was sunk straight into the stone, the fit so perfect water that had sprayed out of the cistern wasn't leaking through the seam. Levy frowned as she set the pitcher down under the nozzle. _Probably...eugh!_ She heaved down on the pump handle, earning a small gush of water and a squeak from the lever. _Created a bottleneck...rrg!_ The pitcher was half full and standing in a small puddle. _That they pump from before the river goes...arg!...on its way._

She leaned against the pump handle to catch her breath. "You all right over there?" Lily asked as he peeled another kiwi.

Levy nodded. "Yeah, sure." She was still panting.

Lily eyed her another moment before looking back at his knife. Levy let her smile fade. _Water always takes the path of least resistance. It'll go down from there, which probably means..._

She clasped her hands to make them stop shaking before she picked the water pitcher back up. Considering what was sleeping beneath her feet, _down_ wasn't her favorite direction right now.

 _Plan D_ , she decided. _E if I get my way._

She thanked Lily for breakfast and left not long after. Dragons weren't good for appetites, and no matter how warm the kitchen was, she felt too exposed in her pajama pants and sleeping shirt to feel comfortable.

 _That and my feet are freezing!_ she thought as she ran the last fifty feet to her room.

Levy quickly dressed, stamping her feet into her boots in relief. She would try those open ventilation shafts first, she decided. _If I can avoid that sticky magic, the better_. Levy flexed her right hand fingers and cringed. Her joints ached, and she didn't think it was just from the cold.

Taking her pack in case she found a way out, Levy trudged up to the top of the spiral. "Could be one of the sealed off rooms..." she muttered to herself as she peered into the dark rooms she passed. "Probably not Lily's armory. Let me try that empty room though first. There was something not quite right about it."

She finally reached the highest column, where the wall became solid as it led to the main door, and stopped. Levy eyed the frigid darkness, feeling the ache in her right knuckles and trying to tell herself it was nothing to worry about. But she worried anyway.

 _Well_ , she told herself, _if there is another way out through these vents then I don't_ need _to force the door right now. It would actually be a waste of time. And it's not like I have any to waste so I should really...I should really try finding these vents first. Right, so this is the new Plan B, right? Right._

She knew a convenient excuse when she heard one, but decided not to question it too deeply as she turned around. Levy passed the first column again and peeked over the edge, grimacing at the deep drop. "Yeesh," she mumbled under her breath, a chill taking over the marrow of her bones, "talk about a last resort. I'm not even going to give that one a letter." More and more it felt like it would be easier to die in this place then get out of it.

"Almost makes me wish I'd stayed home," Levy mumbled as she hoisted her pack up higher on her back. She frowned. "Not that I'm about to go back just because of _you_ ," she grumbled.

The highest room was just as empty as yesterday, nothing taken away or added. Levy walked around the edge of the room. Four corners, squarish. There was some black grit on the floor that crunched like ice under her feet, but that was about it.

A shudder rocked her shoulders. "It's cold though. A lot colder than yesterday." Levy wrapped her arms tight around herself and turned in a circle, looking up into the darker corners of the ceiling. "It's got to be open to the outside somewhere."

She retraced her path around the edges of the room, hugging the wall with her arms raised as high above her head as they could reach. Frigid air bit at her fingers maybe two-thirds of the way down the second wall.

"Gotcha!"

Levy dumped her bag on the ground and wrote her LIGHT spell in the air. Even with its glow filling the space, a square remained stubbornly black on the wall over her head.

She eyed the vent from the ground, tilting her head to the side. Lily was right; it was awful small. "It'll be tight going in. If it narrows any I won't fit at all."

But she had to try. Tying a piece of rope to the straps of her pack, Levy cinched the other end around her belt so she wouldn't lose it in the dark. Then she shrunk her light spell and set it to hovering just in front of her forehead.

Getting up to the vent took some effort, but she hadn't climbed this mountain in the driving rain without some upper body strength, and, toes of her boots scraping against the stone wall as they searched for purchase, Levy clawed her way up into the vent.

Her miniature LIGHT spell severely lit the crawlspace, revealing rock so craggy it looked like it had been chewed. Her head already brushed the ceiling, so she couldn't lean up or twist around to haul her bag up after her. She could lay down though, and that gave her enough room to roll over. Grabbing her end of the rope, Levy pulled up her bag, heaving a sigh of relief when its weight no longer threatened to drag her right back out.

She was breathing hard by the time she got herself turned back over and on her hands and knees again. Already the crawlspace felt smaller, closing in around her like a bad dream.

Levy started crawling. Five yards and she could see her breath more than what was in front of her. Eight and there was ice coating the rough rock in a rind. Sliding on it put her in danger of cracking her head on a low rock, but it was faster than crawling. Seventeen yards and she found the first crossways.

She turned her head, shining her light down each of the three offshoots. "Well now what?" Levy mumbled to herself.

She tried to feel which way the air was coming from, but the storm must have died down because the wind was practically nonexistent. Either that or her face was so frozen she couldn't feel anything.

"Eeny, meeny, miney..." Levy turned left, hoping the slight rise she felt under her hands would lead her up and out. It did...until the next split in the tunnel.

Up and down, right and left. Levy lost all sense of where she was. Her knees felt like they had screws in them, and her hands were leaden in her gloves. Her side hurt from the rope biting into her where the weight of her bag dragged it back. She screwed her mouth up and kept going.

 _I will get out_ , she told herself. _I will get out._

 _I will get out._

 _I will_ -

Her hand slipped out from under her and she went flying down the decline she'd been oh-so-carefully navigating. Levy shrieked, throwing her arm up in time to keep her chin from banging against the rock, but she couldn't keep her bag from smacking her in the back of the head. She tried to catch herself, but the ice had made everything too slick. She went sailing down into the dark and there was no way she could have stopped herself.

"No! No! _Nooooooooo!_ "

Her voice screamed out ahead of her like a warning alarm. Something cracked across her forehead, leaving a stinging welt far too close to her eye, and Levy tumbled to the side, scraping the wall with her shoulder. Something cracked, and for a horrible moment she thought it was her shoulder blade before she realized it was the floor crumbling under her weight.

It was a moment of mixed relief.

Levy screamed again as she scrabbled for something to cling to, only to latch onto a broken piece of rock before she fell straight down head first to land hard on-

Soft.

And...mothballs?

Clothes.

She'd fallen out of the vents into a closet.

 _Why's a dragon have clothes?_

The addled thought circled her spinning head like a goldfish caught in a whirlpool, and it was all Levy could do to lay there, arms limp away from her. Her heart was hammering in her chest so hard she could hardly breathe around it. She blinked quickly, trying to bring her surroundings into focus, before realizing there wasn't any light to see by.

 _Spell...must've gone out_ , she realized. _Or, or gotten lost in that labyrinthine_ _ **death trap**_ _._ Levy scowled up at the ceiling. _Why does air need that many different paths anyway?_

A light appeared quickly enough that she knew he'd been watching her somehow. Either that or he'd been listening for her telltale shriek. Levy turned her head on her stiff neck, wincing at the pain that lanced up her spinal cord when she moved. Torchlight was bobbing closer to her, followed by a long-tailed shadow.

Lily stopped next to Levy, looked down, and raised an eyebrow at her. "No more ventilation shafts?"

Levy coughed off the musty chill that had settled in her chest. "No more ventilation shafts," she wheezed out.

The Exceed nodded, then held out his paw and helped her up.

...

She wrote everything down when she was safely in her 'room' again after dinner.

"Right, so possibilities." She began ticking off fingers. "There's the door, the lantern oil, the ventilation shafts..." She tapped the end of her ink quill against her lip. "Of course, I'd either have to spend years mapping them or be ridiculously lucky to make any good use of them, and I think with this it's pretty clear my luck's evaporated."

Levy sighed as she eyed her left hand, now bound up in a long piece of off-white bandage. She'd managed to sprain it on the landing into the pile of old, moth-eaten dress shirts her grandparents wouldn't have been caught dead wearing. "Seriously. What's he doing with a room full of human frippery anyway?" she asked as she scratched a messy line through _C – crawl out vents_.

She went back to her list. "No doubt he's sitting on an exit of his own down at the bottom, selfish lizard. Oh! And there's that river feeding the kitchen pump. That just leaves that ceiling exit I saw Lily use and the- the final exit."

Her hand shook as she thought of the long fall down the central shaft, but quickly set it from her mind. "So not including that one, I have A through F. That's-" She counted out letters against her fingers, "-six different possible ways out. Wait..." Levy leaned over the scrap of paper she was writing on. "I scratched out C. That makes five. And I want to make the old F the new C because at least I know where the ceiling is, unlike that back door and the river source." She made a note, paused, then added another. "Oh, and B should be E since I don't know if blowing anything up will even work with those defensive spells Lily told me about. That'll make B the new C, and the new C will be the old F and- wait, no, D will- wait, what?"

She held the scrap of paper away from her face and blinked at it, trying to follow the trail of confusing little arrows she'd drawn from letter to letter, but they led her in illegible circles, each letter anchoring three or four different arrows until she didn't know which one to follow.

"Agh! Stupid alphabet soup!" Levy gave up with an aggravated sigh and crumpled it all up and tossed the paper ball over her shoulder. She grumbled as she threw herself onto her side and scowled at the wall until she eventually fell asleep.


	5. Don't Go Into the Basement

Ugh, one of those days where nothing goes like I wanted it to. :( I hope the rest of you are having a better week. And if you're not, well, at least we're not being held prisoner by temperamental dragons with questionable senses of humor, right?

* * *

Hoarded

Five: Don't Go Into the Basement

With no other obvious way out, Levy chipped at the door's seal like a stone carver. Unfortunately, she only had a toothpick to pick at the magical equivalent of hot tar. And the more she picked at it, the more the sticky magic ate into her fingers.

"Ow..." she groaned as she flexed her fingers two days later. The ache had turned into a constant searing pain in her hand, making her miss the numbness of the last few days as her vision blurred. She tried to message the pain away with the semi-frozen fingers of her other hand, but that just made her muscles spasm.

"Are you all right?"

Levy turned around, biting her lip as she nodded at Lily and lied with a quick nod of her head. "Yeah, puh-peachy," she stammered.

Lily wasn't stupid enough to believe her. "You look it," he commented dryly. He looked up at the door towering over them as Levy wiped off the sweat icing her brow and pushed herself back onto her knees. "I came to ask if you wanted to eat lunch with me," Lily said when she was more or less upright. "You've been up here all morning. I thought you might be hungry."

"Sure," Levy said a little quicker then she meant to, and pushed herself to her feet with her left hand. Her right was in so much pain it was useless.

Already off balance, Levy stumbled sideways, her shoulder hitting the door and making the spells flare bright in warning. She tried to laugh it off as exhaustion, but Lily's eyebrows hung low over his orange eyes.

Thankfully all he said was, "You really shouldn't mess with that. Even I don't know what he's done to those enchantments."

Levy didn't answer, and thankfully he dropped the subject. Lunch was enjoyable (more so after she dropped her hand in the ice bucket with a relieved sigh) and by the end she felt human again.

 _See? Just needed some food in you,_ she told herself as she leaned away from the table. _That'll teach you not to tackle that much magic on an empty stomach._

She felt good enough to wander after Lily left to...do whatever it was the Exceed did during the day, so Levy decided to explore the lower half of the spiral's rooms and arches.

"There's _got_ to be some kind of back door," she muttered as she walked. "For practical reasons if nothing else. I mean, how's Lily supposed to open that metal monstrosity anyway? That's a _dragon's_ door, and if there's a _dragon's_ door then there's got to be an _Exceed's_ door too." Or at least a cat flap, but she wasn't about to say that where Lily might hear. He'd only just forgiven her for what she'd said about Gajeel carelessly killing humans.

Her logic felt thin even to Levy, never mind that if it did exist, there was no guarantee that she would even fit through a door meant for Lily. But actively searching kept the panic at bay, so Levy kept walking.

The torches were dimmer down here, or maybe the shadows were thicker, and Levy quickly found that she was barred from most of the rooms by opaque barriers. Her head still throbbed from when she ran nose-first into the first one she found. She didn't see the glyphs of the jutsu shiki shimmering a faint green in the floor of the archway until she was crouched down on the ground holding her nose and hoping the pulse pounding away in it didn't mean it was broken. After that she walked through doors with her arms outstretched like she was blind, although the magic made the residual burning in her hand flare up.

What rooms she could enter were as dull and practical as the ones she'd found yesterday – more storage, a small garden complete with compost heap, and several empty caverns that should have led deeper into the mountain but somehow only spit her out in her room.

She sat there on the bed, thinking, after her latest relocation late in the afternoon. "This is exhausting," she growled to herself as one foot bobbed restlessly in the air.

"Come on Lev, don't be dumb. You always knew there was really only one place it would be," she muttered as she frowned at the willow tapestry on the wall across from her, its leaf-dotted branches trailing in water so vivid that she swore the ripples were actually moving. "You just hoped you'd get lucky enough not to face it."

Levy hung her head and sighed, foot pausing in its constant movement. She'd really, really, _really_ hoped she wouldn't have to face it – _him_ – whatever, but she wasn't surprised that was her only option. Where else was the last exit supposed to be but at the very bottom of a mountain keep?

And who better to guard it than a dragon?

Levy snorted, foot starting up again as she pressed her hands together, wincing as her joints ached. "Who better to smash my last little hope to pieces too? Not to mention _me_..."

She cringed as she massaged her wrist, more at the horrifying image now glued to her mind's eye of Gajeel's bulk looming in the dark, eyes burning, scales outlined in silver in the meager light, and her, crushed beneath a massive forearm, arms flung out between claws the size of old trees...

She shuddered, wrapping her arms tight around herself. "At least it's...it's better than being eaten..." she tried to tell herself, but it wasn't.

Levy wasn't hungry when Lily invited her to dinner, so she spent the rest of the night trying to convince herself to go down those last few levels and see for herself just exactly what Gajeel was hiding.

"You're not being practical putting it off, you're being a coward," she told herself firmly as she paced beside the bed. "Now quit procrastinating and go already!"

Levy came to a hard stop by the footboard and gave a sharp nod, face set, hands fisted so tight her nails were leaving little crescents in her palms. "Right!" she whispered, and then stomped her feet into her boots and grabbed her waiting pack before she could change her mind again.

The common room outside was empty and Levy dimly remembered the quiet shuffle of Lily going to bed hours ago. _It's for the best_ , she told herself as she watched the gray and red curtain sway in the dark. _He'd only try and stop me. He's made it clear he's loyal to Gajeel._

She didn't doubt that for a moment, so Levy was surprised to find she would miss the reserved cat. He was a good friend, despite everything.

She tiptoed across the room, leaving the spare clothes he'd given her folded neatly on the low table, her blue quill perched on top. She wouldn't feel right taking the expensive items – even if they _were_ ancient and ugly – and as for the quill...well, it wasn't like she could use it anymore, could she? Gajeel had broken it beyond repair. It was just a feather with a bit of rusting metal attached now, a useless ornament.

And, as far as unspoken messages went, she thought Lily would understand.

Levy was relieved to find some of the torches outside still lit, although the blackness that pooled between the circles of firelight was inky and absolute. She stuck close to the outside wall, one hand trailing over the rocky surface, as she imagined how easy it would be to lose her way in the blackness and stumble out into the shaft between the pillars. She only stopped once, to take water and some food from the kitchen, and after stuffing them in her pack, continued down to the lowest level.

She felt her hand slip free of the wall when it ended and went very still. Like she'd imagined, there was no light down this deep, hardly even a flicker from the torches high above her head.

 _And that is why it's good to come prepared._

This was hardly the first time Levy had wandered around in the dark. And the first time you got lost in a dark subterranean complex and were sure you'd never see the sun again, well, the memory stuck with you.

Levy crouched down, the new weight of her pack making her wobble. She ran two fingers along the thick sides of the soles of her boots, feeling the glyphs she'd etched there and filling them with magic.

STARLIGHT, they read.

Soft, nocturnal light seeped into the darkness of the keep, illuminating her way as she did the same on her other boot. She couldn't see, exactly, but at least she wouldn't trip over anything.

But she could fix that too. _Finally, all those hours sitting bored out of my mind stitching robins onto tea linens pays off._

Levy reached up and slid her headband down her eyes, the feel of the fabric brushing over the bridge of her nose the only difference she could sense. _One, two, three, four_ , she counted stitches over from the knot at the corner. The one she wanted felt like just another cluster of threads to her bare finger, the miniscule glyph she'd sewn there, waiting to be activated, far too small for her to feel the individual lines.

She fed a drop of magic to it and it ran down the thread like dew sliding down a spider's web, trailing silver light in its wake.

The silver lines spread, mimicking the rough shape of Levy's surroundings. She memorized them quickly – flat floor, several dark arches, one directly across from her, two more in the deep dark to her right where the ceiling lowered drastically, some kind of wall or large obstruction immediately to her left, severely pitted – before silver faded to gray, and then disappeared entirely as the magic dissipated. The spell couldn't last long or the thread would burn out.

It was a severe drawback, Levy thought as she resituated her headband back on her head, escaped strands of blue hair tickling her nose, but writing on fabric was problematic at best. Ink bled, paint wouldn't go on smoothly enough. _I could always sew on panel letters, but then they'd be out there for anyone to read. If only thread didn't burn so quickly I might get a more permanent spell._ Levy sighed. _I'll have to work on it some more..._

She inched her way forward, counting her steps as she kept the outline of the room in her head. _Those archways are huge – his own set of rooms probably – but that ceiling got awfully low the farther back it went. I mean, he could probably still fit, but he'd have to crawl at the back. It might be worth starting there just to keep him from chasing me._

But even with her starlit shoes and her magic, the deep dark scared Levy. She tried to rationalize it away, told herself anybody would think twice about going down there, or that if she didn't find a way out and the dragon woke up all he'd have to do was plant himself in front of the bottom of the spiral corridor and he'd have her, but she wasn't quite able to make herself believe it completely.

 _It's just...just this terrible feeling_ , Levy thought as she padded along, keeping one eye on the abyss. _Like...like I got from those trashy thrillers the minstrels like to start up at twilight. The ones where the audience yells 'don't go into the basement you idiot' at the girl with more cleavage than sense when she starts looking for the monster._

Levy rolled her eyes, trying to dislodge the shiver waiting to launch itself down her spine. _Well, at least I don't have_ _ **that**_ _to worry about. I'm looking for the way out of this house of horrors, not Gajeel. I know exactly...where...he...is..._

He was right in front of her. She'd passed some sort of obstacle and he was right there, glimmering faintly in the firelight falling down from above. He was hunkered down on top of a raised section of floor, sleeping.

Her heart thundered so loud in her chest, she wondered if the flick of his nearest ear meant he could hear it. He was sleeping, right? Not- not trying to trick her into coming closer? That felt like a very dragon-ish thing for him to do, but he'd also been horribly blunt since she'd gotten here, shouting insults at her, berating her to her face and not in some backhanded, unexpected fashion. _He's not exactly prone to tricks..._

Levy took a hesitant step one way, then backtracked to the left, testing her theory. Red eyes didn't open. His ears remained still. Not even his tail twitched.

She didn't relax, not standing this close to him, but her heart stopped trying to break free of her chest. Levy stood there, frozen with a fear so strong it made her knees quake, until she remembered that Gajeel wouldn't sleep forever. She had to move.

 _I don't want to find out what he'll do if he finds me gawking at him down here..._

Levy forced herself to look around, afraid her fear would hypnotize her again if she didn't do something, however small. The blackness she'd stepped out of was so absolute it made the gray here seem bright. He'd hollowed out a series of circles for himself – his round nest in the center of the round shaft stretching up to the mountain peak surrounded by a set of pillars that separated the shaft from the outer ring and its lower ceiling. It was hard to see, even squinting, but she thought she could just make out more tall archways leading away on the far side of the pillars.

She moved to take a closer look and sent something small skittering across the ground with the toe of her boot. It made a high pitched _tink-tinka-ling_ sound that had Levy going very still.

Her eyes shot to Gajeel, but he hadn't woken. She noticed his face was contorted though, metal brows pinched and bare slivers of fang starting to peek past his curled lips.

Levy wet her own desert dry mouth. _I guess even dragons have nightmares._

Whatever she'd kicked was highlighted in the soft light radiating from her boots, and she bent to pick it up. It was small, and cold, and rolled around the palm of her hand. _Not a rock_. She raised it to her nose to peer at it. _Is that...a nail?_

She picked it up by the stem and saw that it was. An old, bent, broken off nail. _What's it doing down here?_ she thought, looking around. _Everything's carved from stone- oh..._

The pitted wall behind her wasn't actually a wall, but a massive pile of scrap metal. Nails and hammers and half rusted bicycle handles jutting out from the blackish, grease-stained heap.

 _What a hoarder!_ Levy thought with her jaw hanging open. She looked down at the beaten up nail in her hand, pieces falling together. _These must be the iron filings Lily told me about._

Obviously that had been an inside joke. She saw battered anvils, snapped wagon axels. There were even strips of semi-rusted strings of barbed wire that she noticed when one snagged on the leg of her woolen leggings. She groped around in the gloom for the wire. It was old, brittle, but-

" _Tsss_!"

-still sharp.

"Ow..." Levy hissed as warmth welled up and pooled in her palm. She fumbled for a handkerchief and came up with a thick sock that had somehow ended up in her pocket, and gripped it tight to the gash with her fingers.

 _Maybe there was a curse on the door the first time I broke through_ , she thought with a pout. _I swear if I end up losing my hand I will take this wire and wrap it around his stupid neck and-_

A growl so low it was more vibration than sound rolled through the air behind her.

Every inch of Levy's skin prickled with gooseflesh, every hair on her head rose. The ability to think was wiped away as completely as a shanty caught in a raging flood.

Drawn by the same macabre fascination that had pulled her down here in the first place, Levy turned.

And found red eyes burning into her.

...

The smell of blood drifted through Gajeel's sleep like a will-o'-the-wisp through fog. Never very far, lurking just outside his field of vision. But he could smell it.

He could always smell it.

The human taint to it left him unsettled, searching for whoever it was coming from. It wasn't a deluge, not yet, which meant the nuisance was probably still alive out there, lost in the mist.

"Hey!" Gajeel called into the shapeless dreamscape. "Hey, answer me if yer still alive! I ain't gonna hurt you just- just say somethin' all right?"

Silence.

Gajeel's hackles rose on end. Silence where there should've been sound. He hated that.

Well, if no one was going to answer him, he sure wasn't going to make a fool of himself screaming into the ether, so he kept walking, eyes scanning the landscape for signs of life. The mist had a tendency to gather if he stood still too long, and it swirled out before his armored figure as he stalked about, going nowhere.

He tried not to let his mind wander, but the dream was persistent. Shapes rose up out of the mist, white and solid as soap bubbles. Gajeel passed between them, half remembering the shape of the place as he turned his head from side to side, hackles raised. He thought, maybe, he had been here before. It was a ghost town, empty, sterilized of life, but the smell of blood lingered.

And then it bloomed, hot and full of metal and salt. Gajeel jerked to a stop, trying to keep it out of his nose, and then the village wasn't empty anymore. Bodies littered the street, torn beyond all recognition, and the houses on either side of him were no longer white and fragile but solid and broken. A fire burned somewhere, burning all the colors and leaving acrid smoke in the air that scratched his throat and scoured at his eyes. Even dead, the villagers' final screams lingered in the air, intermingling with the smoke.

Questions circled in his head as he stared in horror at the empty shells of people. Who had done this? It wasn't- He couldn't have- Gajeel would remember if he had-

When the figure took shape out of the smoke at the far end of the street, covered in blood and his features stretched to monstrous proportions, Gajeel nearly sagged in relief. "Well, can't say I ever thought I'd want to see your ugly face again."

The smile tore across the dark pallor of his enemy's face, knifepoint teeth a white scar in the rapidly descending night. He didn't speak.

The old fury began to pound inside his chest, strengthening Gajeel's limbs and turning the mist red. "What? Got nothin' to say? No handy reason for _murdering_ all these people you swore to protect?"

Silence, when there should have been sound.

The red mist was inside him now, quickly taking over. He'd been doing so well, keeping his word like he'd promised, but the blood – the pervasive smell of it. It crept inside him, clung to his nose, poisoned his mind. It made him stronger even as it killed him.

That same, blasted grin was still plastered across his old enemy's face, and then there was no going back.

"You're gonna stay dead this time," Gajeel snarled.

He flew at him, eager to beat that grin right off his face. All those people. All that blood.

"If I can't wipe 'em away then why should you?"

His enemy didn't try to avoid Gajeel's strike, but then why should he? He'd always been faster, stronger, had proved it over and over again until Gajeel had even started to question the effort himself. But seeing him again just standing over the villagers like this was the natural order of the world had wiped all doubts from Gajeel's mind.

He roared as he felt the blow make contact, the sound thundering out through his bones and the skin of his throat to fill the air. His enemy wore no armor – _Cocky moron_ – but it still felt like ramming a brick wall bare knuckled. His armor shrieked at the impact, but the traitor didn't even twitch.

"What are you doing Gajeel?" he spoke without moving his lips.

" _Puttin' you down old timer_!" He shifted his weight, swung metal limbs in a brutal backhand that only turned his foe's head.

"Gajeel~" That smile taunted him.

"You ain't gettin' away this time!"

"Gajeel-"

"It's your fault they turned on us!"

" _Gajeel get a hold of yourself_!"

The shock of Lily's familiar voice felt like Gajeel's spine jumped a foot to the left a split second before the rest of his body joined it. He knew he'd heard the Exceed, but the red mist was still in his eyes, his enemy was still standing in front of him. _Kill him while you've got the chance!_

Lily had always been a persistent pest though. "Gajeel you need to wake up, right now!"

The mist was making everything fuzzy. Dark. He was getting sucked under, he realized, sinking into the ground like quicksand. Whatever magic this was, it hadn't effected his enemy. "Lily? Where are you? It's him! He's here!"

"Wha- what's ha-happening..."

The tremulous voice dragged him down deeper. His enemy stood over him now, beaming down as Gajeel was slowly pulled down by some unrelenting force.

He scrambled for purchase, strained to reach his enemy before he came for him. Now! Now! He had to kill him now!

"He's getting away, Lil!" Gajeel fought harder, wordless snarls slipping past his clenched teeth.

"It's the blood. It awakens...bad memories." Lily's voice came from below him, somewhere in the squishy ground.

Gajeel looked up. His enemy beamed down at him, then lifted one trunk-like leg over Gajeel's head...

Red eyes widened. His heart clenched. " _No_ -"

"Gajeel!"

He slammed back into consciousness, heart hammering behind his plating, claws gouging trenches into the floor. He couldn't see. _Why couldn't he see?!_

"Lily?" he croaked.

Lily understood. "It's still night," he told him, his voice coming from somewhere near his feet and off to one side.

Gajeel squeezed his eyes shut, counted out the interminable seconds as his thundering heart rate slowed and his eyes adjusted. He blinked them open and found the familiar crags of his nest around him. Air left his lungs in a slow exhale that would have left him sagging to the ground. He looked down.

The blue of her hair was unmistakable, even in his deep dark. She had fallen to the floor, limbs shaking, tears rolling unnoticed down her face and cutting through the dirt and rock dust. Her shoes were...glowing, casting shadows up across her chin, her cheeks.

Her eyes were fixed on him.

He narrowed his own, a riotous heat growing in his chest. The smell of blood came from her. _She_ had brought it down here, _into his home_!

"You..." he growled.

Lily had planted himself in front of her, tail switching. "Gajeel," he warned him off. "You're spiraling."

Gajeel didn't care. He slammed his forearm into the nearest pile of scrap, making the girl and Lily duck to avoid the whirlwind of debris. She screamed again, the same high pitched shriek his armor had made in the nightmare, and the blood smell grew stronger. Shame beat back the red mist that threatened him when Gajeel realized some was Lily's.

Heat rolled up his throat and over his tongue as he pushed the emotion aside and fixed his attention on that girl. This was her fault. Hers and her careless, thoughtless _invasion_ of his life-

"Get. Out." Smoke billowed out, the smell of ash threatening to pull him back into his nightmare. She didn't move.

"Out!" he snarled. "Get out of here, _**now**_!"

The brat was already on her feet, scrambling over the rusted metal of his collection and opening up more infuriating cuts in her skin until Lily caught her under the arms and lifted her into the air. He flew her straight up the shaft, putting as much distance as fast as he physically could between Gajeel and her.

He saw her face as she passed – the look in her water-filled eyes as she stared at him, eyes nearly black against the sudden white of her skin.

He knew she saw nothing but a monster.

She was gone in an instant, taking the smell of salt and copper with her. Gajeel stood there, ignoring the tremor making him tremble under his armor. Eventually he regained enough of his mind to look around. Evidently his fighting had been real enough. Half of the nearest pillar had been carved away, deep claw marks shredding it to its core. More stretched across the ground, one cutting up the side of his nest. Metal had been flung everywhere, littering the ground like the rusted remains of a battlefield.

 _I thought she was..._ He shook his head. Never mind what he thought. Never mind that if Lily hadn't gotten to her first, he probably would have killed the nosy little raider. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep and forget this had ever happened.

As he settled his mass back on his nest, ignoring the junk and the new trenches marring the floor, Gajeel actually hoped she did get out. That when he woke up, he'd only hear two heartbeats beating about the place, and she'd be long gone.

If it got him his solitude back, what did it matter who she told? Even if it _did_ get back to the old timer in the end...

...

Lily caught up with her outside the door. She heard him coming. _He walks big for such a small cat_ , she thought as she scratched at the dirt with already aching fingers.

He didn't waste time either. "What did I say about the lower levels?"

"Not to go down," Levy muttered.

"And what do you call sneaking down there in the middle of the night?" he demanded. "Besides idiotic?"

"How 'bout desperate?" Levy shot over her shoulder. "You know why I did it, Lil, so either chew me out later or help me get this door open so we can all go back to our lives."

He made a sound Levy was too human to understand all of the ramifications of. "Why must you be so cursed stubborn?" he shouted. "Why can't you just-"

She rounded on him, dirt spraying from her still-glowing boot heels. She ignored the water dripping down her nose. "What? Sit in my cage like a good girl? Like some kind of pet? Is that what you did?!"

The whites of his eyes were bright even in the gloom, and Levy saw them widen like twin spotlights. The words were bile, she knew that, but she'd had just as much control over them. And now they sat there on the floor between them like a stain.

Levy closed her eyes and bit her lip, for all the good that did her now. _Aren't you the one that's supposed to know better than to speak without thinking?_

"Lily-"

He stuck a paw out, stopping her in her tracks. He shook his head, the motion clearer in the dark than his outline, and then he turned around and left without a word.

 _I should follow him, apologize before I leave_. But if his exit was anything to go by, he didn't want to even look at her right now, much less hear her stutter out apologies.

Levy threw herself back around and slammed magic into her arm to keep the numbness from eating into her bones. "No more alphabet soup," she told herself as she gouged out glyphs in the hard dirt. "No more wandering around looking for doors in the dark. I'm going to bust through this one if it kills me."

Because she had no doubt that if she didn't, Gajeel would.


	6. Breaking Point

Happy New Year everybody! I know it's kind of late to say it now, but if you haven't been able to tell already, I'm kind of a slow poke. n_n; Anywho, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I hope you enjoy it. I had some real fun with the last scene here. ;)

* * *

Hoarded

Six: Breaking Point

Levy worked feverishly on the magic sealing the door, until she lost count of the days. Until she couldn't see straight from exhaustion. Until her hand went numb. Until she passed clean out from the strain of it all and woke up in her bed who-knew-how-many hours later to repeat the whole process again.

She had been determined before, insulted more than scared for her life, but down in the base of the keep...that was the breaking point.

She'd realized pretty quick that Gajeel hadn't actually seen her when she turned and found him staring at her, that he saw someone else in the snare of his night terror, but that hadn't mattered when he flew at her with his claws, ready to tear through her like she was parchment. She'd barely managed to avoid the first strike, his claws slamming into the pillar several yards behind her instead and gouging out stone like children plucked daisies from their stems, but that had been survival instinct more than skill. She couldn't have repeated it, no matter how badly she wanted to.

And then Lily had been there, swooping out of the upper levels and pulling her aside like she weighed no more than the feathers lining his wings. He stood between her and- and that monster, and for the life of her Levy hadn't understood why he hadn't drawn his dagger. No matter how small it was, a weapon was better than an empty hand. Even a toothpick would have been something.

Gajeel was yelling, shouting in words so old she barely recognized them as anything more than ravaged vowels and consonants. Lily shouted back, trying to return the dragon to reason, and Levy had sat there with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed tight over her ears.

The memory was never very far from her thoughts, and the helplessness bowled her over every time, threatening to leave her as a shivering heap on the floor.

 _You're a wizard_ , she told herself, quickly swiping away the warmth collecting in the corners of her eyes. _Not a tower princess, a- a wizard!_

The more she said it, the less true it felt.

Grit lodged itself in her eye and Levy tried to rub it free, but her hand twitched so hard- no, no it was spasming now. She had worked so hard, it had eventually gone numb from the odd magic, and then a sheet of fire she couldn't shake off had started to crawl between her skin and muscles. Now she could see the muscles jumping at random, making her fingers seize painfully. Even if she could feel anything past the fire that burned beneath her skin, she wouldn't have been able to keep them still.

Levy clutched her right hand with her left, clenching her teeth until her jaw creaked, but they jumped no matter how tightly she held them.

 _It'll stop_ , she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. _It'll stop, it'll stop, it'll stop, please stop..._

White fire washed over the bones of her hand in overlapping waves. More than when she'd fallen out of the pear tree when she was eight and broke her leg. More than when she'd been cracked in the head by her favorite horse and stayed cross-eyed for a week so she couldn't read. More than anything she'd felt before ever in her life, it hurt.

Levy peeled her eyes open, blinking past the tears and sending them sliding down her face. She'd made it as far as the first of the torches and sat hunched over, although she didn't remember moving. All she could think of was her hand cradled between her chest and her knees, of the pain making it hard to _breathe_. The skin had to be blackening, peeling right off her fingers like overdone pork-

It looked fine.

She blinked, sending another slew of tears away from her eyes. One fell against the back of her hand and slid down her thumb, impacting like a meteor into a newly made crater. A gargled scream tried to tear itself from her throat only to be shoved back down into her chest as she gasped. Her mind went blank. Stars flashed in front of her eyes. It was all she could do just to sit there.

 _What did he mix with that magic?!_

She didn't know how long it took the thought to form, but it was hot and angry in her head, scorching out the rest of her coherent mind. And when there was nothing left to burn, it went cold, dropping her to the floor like a stone.

...

Lily wondered the same thing when he found her sprawled out on the dirt halfway through the day.

" _Gajeel_!" he shouted as he stormed out of the common room, face full of fury as he leapt into the empty air of the shaft and let himself fall before unfurling his wings. "Gajeel, you idiot, what did you do?!"

The iron dragon raised his head from his breakfast, dented scraps dangling from his jaw as he chewed, and stared at the now seven-foot-tall, black-furred Exceed diving toward him with his large paws outstretched, unimpressed.

He swallowed, the metal sitting heavy in his stomach. "What're ya screamin' about Lil'?" he grumbled.

Lily landed with all the lethal grace of a jungle cat descending from a tree. He regained his balance as he pulled his wings in, the magic evaporating with a small sound. The scar sitting snug against his left eye made his scowl look even more severe. "I just found Levy passed out in front of the door, half frozen and burning with fever." One side of his mouth twitched back from his teeth, but he managed to keep the growl from escaping. "Explain."

Gajeel paused in mid mouthful, a smart remark caught in the rebar snapping between his teeth. But the look on Lily's face told him he was in no mood for anything but an explanation. Gajeel rolled his eyes. There was just no arguing with Lil when he got like this.

"I didn't _do_ anything," he told him as he nosed through his scrap pile for something tasty. "Shorty must've caught a cold or something. You wanna blame someone, blame her for crawlin' through those vents when there's snow on the ground." He found a mace not so eaten up with rust and snatched it up, relishing the way the metal ball popped and squished like snapping candy.

Lily did growl at that, deep and feline. "She can't move most of her right arm, Gajeel! Magic – _your_ magic – is eating into her muscles like _acid_."

Gajeel froze from snout to tail tip. He looked back at Lily with wide eyes. "What?"

Lily's fur bristled with fury, but his tail was oddly still, instead of lashing every which way. It must be bad, the dragon realized, to have the former captain so scared. There might not be anything left to do...

"What did you put in that seal?"

Gajeel opened his mouth, but the words didn't come out until a few heartbeats later. "Just- just a little blood, only enough to make it burn, so she would think twice about messing with it again!"

Lily's eyes widened as Gajeel talked, mouth falling open as the full implications struck him. By the time Gajeel got around to defending himself, Lily's ears were twisted back and his lips were contorted in a snarl.

"You of all people know how dangerous that is!" he shouted up at him, tips of his claws starting to show past his large toes. "What even possessed you?!"

Gajeel bridled, scales stiffening with an audible sound. "Quit blaming me! It was a precaution! You remember those? They're supposed to keep the nosy vermin from sniffing us out in the first place."

"She was only looking for books, Gajeel, not you!"

"Well that's not what she got, now is it? And- and what kind of crazy woman keeps clawing at something hurts that bad, huh? That's like, like tasting arsenic an' comin' back for more!" he shouted, ignoring the slivers of unwanted guilt needling the base of his throat. It wasn't his fault she'd turned out to be so stupid...

"The kind that's held prisoner by a dragon, you armor-plated gecko!" Lily snapped.

Gajeel's head jerked back, gray smoke hazing up the air between them. "Are you _ever_ gonna let that go?" he grumbled. "What were we s'pposed to do? Let her out to blab?"

"Well we sure weren't supposed to kill her a week after she got here!" Lily threw out a muscle-banded arm back up the shaft where the pipsqueak was shivering with fever. "She climbed this desolate rock of yours in the middle of a squall that would rust your hide solid looking for books you don't even have! You think something as disconcerting as pain and common sense is going to stop a woman like that from getting away from you?"

Lily's words drove the needles in deeper and Gajeel found himself swaying from foot to foot. "When ya put it that way..."

"When I put it that way, you're a moron. Now go and find that fairy friend of yours and get her back here. She's worked miracles before."

Gajeel's nostrils widened and he snorted. "She an' I ain't-"

Lily jabbed a paw at him, bringing him up short. "She puts up with your stupidity and cleans up after you when you step in it. That's the only kind of friend you've got at the moment."

" _Fine_ ," Gajeel hissed. "What're you gonna do while I'm out exposing myself for some thieving little twerp?"

Lily glared at him and Gajeel wished he could swallow his own words as easily as the spike-studded mace. "I'm going to do whatever I can to keep your idiocy from killing the girl. Now _move_."

...

Lily didn't bother with walking and arrowed up the shaft without checking if Gajeel would do anything but grumble at him. He would go – quicker then he would ever admit. Despite every word out of his mouth (and everything he'd done since Levy had let herself in, he wasn't heartless. He cared what happened to the humans, more than he liked. Certainly more than he wanted to. He would go.

He would.

The telltale clamor of heavy armor being propelled upward filled Lily with more relief than Levy deserved. She was far from saved, although the fairy's intervention would greatly increase her chances. If Gajeel could retrieve her in time. If Levy was still alive when she got here...

 _Dragon's blood_ , Lily thought, eyes hard as he tucked his wings against his sides and zoomed into the common room on sheer momentum. At least now he knew what he was dealing with, even if he couldn't cure her of it. _That's something._

He pulled aside the curtain to the room she'd been sleeping in and it suddenly felt very close to nothing at all. Levy was on the bed where he'd left her, gasping like a drowning victim and just as drenched from the cold sweat pouring out of her. Her left hand was fisted so tight in the thick blankets they would have torn if Lily had tried to take them away. And her right hand-

Lily collapsed in on himself as he lost his concentration, reverting to his smaller body. He dropped the sudden distance to the ground, fumbling to catch himself as a shudder traveled in a line down his spine from the tops of his ears down to his toe pads, raising his short fur on end and wrapping around his stomach like a constrictor.

Exceeds had excellent vision—night, distance, magical. If it had a name, they could see it. And right now Lily's showed an ugly, bruise-like purple consuming Levy's hand. It had seeped in through her skin, sticking fast to her muscles and jamming them like it had jammed the nib of that quill she'd tried to leave him, and from there down to her unprotected bones, fragile and white.

What was worse was that it had taken hold in her circulation, from there pumping out and up her arm, to her neck and back down again until it met her heart. All the pumping diluted it, stretched it thin, but it was still accumulating. Unless they could get some kind of antidote into her, it would eventually cripple her heart like it had her hand.

It would kill her, sure as poison.

Lily's eyes swept side to side, seeing how far the dragon's blood had traveled. It had been a long time since he'd had to deal with this kind of corruption, and it took him a moment to remember what to do.

"Levy," he said as he hopped up on the side of the bed and tried to lift her so she was sitting up. He needed to keep her heart above her hand. "C'mon, Levy, you need to stay awake, yes? What's my name, huh? Can you tell me my name?"

He got her small self propped up with her back against the wall and tapped her cheek with one paw. She was awake, or at least, not out cold. Her eyes were half open but glazed, and her head kept lolling forward on her neck. Small, mumbled sounds that could have been garbled words kept falling out of her mouth.

Lily's ears swung toward her as he tried to pick something out. "Yes, yes it's Lily. And you need to listen to me, Levy, all right? Help will get here soon, but you have to stay awake. Did you hear that? _Stay_ -"

...

"-awake, my dear?"

Levy looked over at her father, for a split second confused about why he was there. But then, this was breakfast. Where else would he be but at the table with her?

Levy smiled at him, his neatly-trimmed beard twitching when he returned the gesture. His hair was dark, unlike hers, and he was dressed warmly in wool with his fur-lined winter cloak. Levy looked down and saw she was dressed the same. No wonder she was so hot.

"Awake enough, Father. What were you saying?" she answered him as she unclasped her cloak and draped it over the high back of her chair behind her.

Her father twitched another of his hidden smiles at her and put his porcelain coffee cup down on the table. "I asked how late you stayed in the library this time, bluebird. Tea?" He pulled a smaller cup out of his own and offered it to her.

"Yes, thank you," Levy said as she took the smaller cup – which only looked small and grew to normal size the closer it got to her hand – a miniscule, insistent detail niggling at the back of her mind. "But, you hate tea." She looked down at the brown liquid scattered with flower heads and broken cinnamon sticks like twigs in a muddy river. "Come to think of it, so do I."

Her father twitched a smile, his salt-and-pepper beard jumping. "Can't stand the stuff," he agreed, and took a loud sip.

Levy put hers down without drinking any. The smell of the flowers was making her sick. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes, the library. "I-"

"Eat your breakfast!"

A ring bedazzled hand flashed into existence and stuffed an overdone egg into her mouth. Levy had to chew or choke on it.

Her mother swanned past her, still talking as she climbed over Levy's father in her full skirts and pumps. He obligingly lifted his tea away from her hemline.

"A princess must always eat her breakfast. What will people say if they knew you hated breakfast?"

Levy choked down the egg and looked at the table to see another pair of egg yolk eyes staring up at her, complete with a crooked bacon smile. "I don't hate breakfast, I hate eggs-"

"A princess must always like her eggs!" her mother chided, scandalized. "What would people say if they knew you hated eggs?" She finished using her husband as a stepping stool and sat at the far end of the table across from Levy. Tea and breakfast popped into being and the queen attacked it with dainty gusto. Her husband looked more exhausted from her climb then she did, and blotted his forehead on his cravat, the white of it bringing out the streaks at his temples.

"They'd probably ask why you were making me eat them," Levy told her mother, leaning around the centerpiece flowers in their ornamental vase to see her. The queen only went on eating, her extended pinkies making things difficult all around. Her knife reached plate but she kept going, cutting the ceramic as easily as bread.

A voice spoke directly behind Levy's ear—"Hold on Levy, just hold on."—but when Levy twisted around, no one was there. The servants, she supposed, practicing their invisibility again.

"What was that? Do not mumble, Princess. You should not mumble! What would people say if they heard you mumble?"

"It wasn't me!" Levy protested around the flowers. "It- it was the flowers!" she cried, not wanting to get the servant in trouble. Invisible or not, she knew her mother would find him.

The queen's eyes popped all the way open and she jumped in her chair, dropping her fork. "Flowers! I didn't ask for flowers! Take them. Take them away!"

"But I got them for you, dear," the king wheezed, straggles of white hair falling across his thin face.

"How thoughtful. Take them. Take them away!"

Bland hands attached to a bland body in a uniform with shining brass buttons came to take the vase full of flowers away. They were black and white tiger lilies with long whiskers that kept whispering, "Levy, Levy, Levy."

"But I like them," Levy tried to protest. "Please don't take them. I'll, I'll be good, I promise!"

"Hmf," the queen huffed as the flowers grew farther and farther away, until their whispering was little more than a pulse beating in Levy's ears. "Don't make promises you can't keep. How will you ever marry well if you make foolish promises and keep flowers? Dear! Tell the princess about marriage!"

"Can't stand the stuff," her father said, snowy beard twitching.

The whispers kept shrinking. "Levy, Levy, Levy..."

"Wait, no! Bring them back! I need them!" Levy tried to get up to chase after them, but her cloak fell over her and wrapped her up so tight she couldn't even squirm. The fur was stifling. Hot. Why was it so hot?

"It's a desert, Princess. What did you expect? A _cold_ desert? Hmf!" Her mother took a bite of plate, shards of ceramic sticking in her teeth. Against the endless backdrop of sand and sun her jewels looked even more brilliant while the king turned gaunt and skeletal in the unforgiving light. "A princess would know better."

"I do! I am!" Levy cried, sweat or tears stinging her eyes as she tried to find some relief from the heat. Her struggles only made her arm and chest ache. "Please, it's too hot. I can't think!"

"A princess should _never_ -"

"Can't stand the stuff-"

" _Levy,_ _Levy_ _,_ _Levy_..."

The legs of Levy's chair began to smoke, then little flames began to lick the edge of her infernal cloak. She could feel the heat of them against her bare feet, hear her skin start to hiss as it blistered.

"It's reached her heart. It will be very close," her mother abruptly announced in not-her-mother's voice.

Levy stared at her. "Help! Help me please!"

Fur tickled her face, stroked the sweat off her forehead, but the fire climbed higher. "Hold on. I'm here with you, Lev."

The words came from her father, but the deep voice wasn't his. He reached out a bony hand and gripped hers. He was a skeleton now, his grin gaping at her across the table.

The smoke grew thicker, stuffing up her nose and chest with cotton and turning everything gray. Levy held her breath trying to escape it.

 _Levy..._

 _Le...vy..._

 _Lev..._

Everything went so horribly still.

Then, mercifully, there was water.

It cascaded over her in a waterfall, smothering the flames licking her calves with an icy, welcome cold. Levy gasped, her heart pounding extra hard inside her chest, and the cold water leapt down her throat. She didn't drown. She could actually breathe easier as it cleared away the smoke and aching like a dam washed away by a sudden flood.

It swept everything away – the fire, the sand, the table, the cloak holding her down. It ripped away her father's hand, scattering the rest of his bones on the current, while her mother was carried away still sitting in her chair, primly cutting her plate into neat little squares.

The desert became a sea bed. The sun went out like a candle. Soon there was nothing but cold and empty darkness, like closing your eyes after a long, exhausting day.

Levy relaxed into it. It felt so wonderful just to lie there.

"Hush now," the water murmured. "Let the girl sleep."


	7. Living With the Consequences & His Cat

So I...am a terrible procrastinator. But some of the sharper crayons in the reader box might have figured this out already. n_n; Some cool stuff has happened though! Like I'm getting a real book PUBLISHED and everything! :D I left a note on my profile with more details (and a link to my newish blog Wish I Was A Bookwyrm that I still haven't told anyone about u.u) so you should definitely check it out! I only just got through editing the book the other day so I HOPE (please please please) to have more time now that that's completed. :)

Big thanks to Henrich by the way for your PM last month! I hope you'll take this as the answer I never got to send. n_n; As for everybody else, I love you all and hope you enjoy this next chapter!

* * *

Hoarded

Seven: Living with the Consequences...and His Cat

Levy struggled to wake for days. She'd always been a heavy sleeper but this, this was just ridiculous.

Occasionally she would get her eyes open, lashes fluttering and obscuring most of her view, but she slept so deeply in between that it felt like her surroundings changed every few minutes.

She remembered Lily first, his round face leaning over her with fat tears rolling from his eyes to land on Levy's forehead. She wanted to hug him and tell him she was so deeply, abjectly sorry, even though her mind was still too fuzzy to remember for what, just that she was. Sorry, sorry-

Next time there was a woman with eyes like deep water and the unmistakable frisson of wild magic that had the hairs on Levy's arms standing straight up from her skin. She was lifting Levy's eyelids and pressing cool hands against her too-hot forehead.

"-done all she can," Levy caught her saying to someone else. "It is just the fever now, but Juvia must return to her river quickly."

A deep, rolling voice answered her, thanked her, but Levy was already getting sucked under by a water darker than the fey woman's eyes.

There were a few fever dreams, most too trivial for her to remember, interspersed with real memories of Lily nursing her. There was one though that stuck with her. It was Gajeel. He sat in a white misted landscape, just sat there, looking down at her with one forearm tucked under his metal-clad chest. Levy sat on the ground with her chin on her up drawn knees, far enough away she wouldn't hurt her neck meeting his glowing eyes. They just sat there, silent in the mist, Gajeel watching her and Levy watching Gajeel.

It was rather boring as dreams went, but she couldn't forget it.

Slowly, Levy grew stronger. She heard more of what Lily said to her, understood he was talking to her whether she was awake or not. Eventually she even got her eyes to stay open, even if it was only halfway.

Relief seeped deep into the Exceed's face, like sunlight finding a way through every little crevice. "There she is," he said when her eyes didn't close right away. "You've been out for days. I was starting to worry." He crooked a smile at her.

Tears welled up in Levy's eyes because she knew he meant it, and she remembered why she didn't deserve it.

"Lily-" Her voice sounded like sandpaper over rocks and he immediately jumped up to get her water, making the muscles in Levy's throat tighten so she couldn't speak. Lily lifted her head and helped her drink and Levy cried as she did.

"I'm so sorry Lily." Her voice was clearer, but still little more than the scrape of sand underfoot. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry, sorry, sah-so _sorry_ -"

He ran his paw over her unwashed hair, expression only vaguely troubled. "I know Levy. It's okay."

At first she thought he only said it to make her stop crying, but looking up at him, Levy saw he meant it. "No it's not! What I said...it was so terrible! And I know better but the words still- I still said it! Why aren't you mad at me?"

Lily smiled at her, his white teeth nearly lost in the white whiskers of his muzzle. "Like you're the only one here that's ever said something moronic in the heat of the moment. And after spending the last week wondering if you would even live..." He shrugged small shoulders. "It feels like going backwards to hold much of a grudge." He patted her hand. "I was furious when I left you though, if that makes you feel any better."

Levy sniffed and rolled over on her side, burying her face in Lily's fur. "A little yeah," she rasped.

He let her stay like that for some time, calmly sweeping sweaty strands of hair back from her face. She was almost asleep when she remembered suddenly.

"Did he ever tell you what it was he mixed in with the magic?"

Lily's paw paused over her head, and Levy sat up enough to roll back onto her pillows. Her right arm started to ache from all the moving around and she laid it across her chest with a grimace, resisting the urge to see if she could still move her fingers. _Recuperate first,_ she told herself, _find out if you're left handed later._

She told herself it was sensible and not just putting off the inevitable, and feeling so tired made the lie easier to swallow.

"Lily?" Levy mumbled as her eyes started to close from a more mundane kind of exhaustion. His face was inscrutable and her mind was slowing like molasses so Levy couldn't even question why.

He gave her a tight smile. "Regrettably no. Only that he did not think you were so stubborn to try and push past the _lethal_ side effects." His eyes narrowed and one side of his whiskers jumped.

"Huff," Levy sighed as she settled deeper into the blankets. "Shows what he knows," she muttered.

Levy was asleep before she could hear Lily chuckle.

...

"You are a terrible patient," Lily told her a few days later.

Levy slouched against her nest of pillows, picking at her fingernails, all but two bitten down to the quick. "I know, I know! What I don't know is how to stop..." She breathed deep, and then turned and coughed when it strained the ache still lingering in her chest. She waved Lily off when he stepped towards her, unable to breathe right as the ache strained her lungs.

She finally remembered how to breathe around it and collapsed back on the pillows, gasping like she'd run up from the lower level all over again. "I... _hate_...being sick," she moaned, thumping the bed with her left hand. She tried not to think of the right one, lying uselessly across her stomach with her fingers curled stiffly against her palm.

She looked over at Lily, standing on his usual chair as he folded laundry. Little pairs of trousers and shirts already folded into crisp squares lay in a tidy row on that side of the bed. He'd taken his jacket off before he'd started and it hung by both shoulders off the back of his chair so it wouldn't wrinkle. He was like that, Levy had realized spending the better part of these last few days with him. Not just neat, but well-ordered. Everything in its place. No movement wasted.

He snapped another fold into a tunic and laid it precisely over the others on the bed. It all made Levy smile.

"How'd you learn to do that Lil? I can barely get the corners to match on a bed sheet."

Lily looked up at her as he smoothed out the wrinkles on a new tunic before folding in the sleeves, then creasing it so the bottom hem touched the collar. "I learned in the army. But other than that it's just repetition."

Levy stared at the two foot tall Exceed. She tried not to sound so incredulous when she asked, "You were in the army?"

The cat smirked. "The Royal Army of Edolas." He paused, thinking, then waved a dismissive paw at her. "You won't have heard of Edolas before," he assured her.

Levy stopped trying to place it. "Were you a scout?" she asked, thinking his quick mind, small size, and aera magic would give him quite the advantage gathering information.

His smirk grew lopsided. "Royal Captain of the First Magic War Division," he corrected.

Levy stared. She managed to keep her mouth closed, but her eyes were a lost cause given the way he snickered at her, whiskers twitching.

She shook her head at him. "You enjoy circumventing expectations far too much, Lil."

"Well, I so rarely get the chance anymore," he told her as he began to place his neatly stacked clothes back in the basket. To Levy's great relief though, he sat down on his chair when he was done, content to stay for awhile. She picked at her fingernails, wanting to ask but too self-conscious to just come out and ask Lily how he'd ended up locked away in this mountain with Gajeel the Foul Tempered.

She settled for the roundabout, "So is Edolas where you grew up?"

Lily's smirk took on a self-deprecating edge. "No. I was the only Exceed in Edolas." He shifted where he sat, breathed in deep through his nose, then released it, words and all.

"The Exceed live in the kingdom Extalia above Edolas. I was...exiled, long ago, for treasonous acts against Queen Shagotte."

Her mouth did fall open at that, just a little. "You? But- you're _Lily._ If you can be loyal to a dragon I don't see how-" The thought struck her and she felt her eyebrows fly upwards. "Was it because...?" She pointed at the door and mouthed _him_.

Lily chuckled and shook his head. "No. This was long before I met Gajeel. Although one followed the other as it turned out."

"What happened?" Levy asked, eager for some answers.

Lily thought back, his orange-hued cat's eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "Oh...it's all very long and complicated, but I suppose the simple version is that we were on opposite sides of the battlefield."

Levy's eyes widened. "But you said Gajeel fought for the humans..."

Lily nodded, his face serious. "That would be part of the 'long and complicated'," he told her, tail curling uncomfortably where it fell over the seat. "The humans of Edolas were always...reclusive, but their leader at the time, King Faust, was quite mad with paranoia. A magic-wasting plague had swept through the country, robbing the Edolas people of their magic and leaving them weak on all sides of the conflict. To...protect them, Faust attempted to steal magic from his enemies—fairies, the Exceed, even other human wizards. And that," he said slowly, "is what the Magic War Divisions did."

 _That is what I did_. The words were clear enough despite the fact he didn't say them. Levy sat there, trying to add this new information to what she already knew of Panther Lily – that he was compassionate, had saved her even after she'd been cruel to him, that his loyalty was unyielding. And, after he was banished for treason, he used to steal wizard's magic for a mad king.

"Gajeel found it as horrendous as you do," Lily went on, reading her face accurately. He slouched against his chair, sardonic smirk on his face as he told her, "We got into it when Faust tried to drain Gajeel's allies so he could destroy Extalia, and he beat me down. Did everything but swing me around by my tail. _Not_ that I went easy on him." He sat up and stared Levy down to make that clear.

The corner of her mouth still tried to jump up. "Of course not."

Satisfied, Lily leaned back again. "And he was right about everything of course. Faust was really nothing more than a selfish hoarder."

Levy frowned. _Well he would know,_ she thought, but decided not to say out loud.

Lily didn't notice her pinched expression and she quickly got rid of it. "Fortunately for everyone, his son made a much better king," he told her, his eyes darkening. The end of his tail puffed out a little. "Probably from taking the brunt of his father's madness as a boy."

Levy waited a moment before she asked, "And after that you followed Gajeel?"

Lily came out of whatever dark memory held him, and his fur smoothed back down. "Yes, at first because I owed him, but eventually I became his partner." His smirk widened into a grin and his tail lashed from side to side. "We were a force to reckon with. Black Steel and his Black Cat."

"Not terribly creative names," Levy said with a laugh.

"No, but they did the trick." The grin faded and Lily sighed. "After the war we wandered for a time, but the world quickly became too dangerous for dragons and we holed up here."

He gave the rock walls and ceiling a tired look and Levy looked with him. "You'd think someone with a wingspan like his would find somewhere higher and with more sun," she thought out loud.

Lily snorted. "You've seen how melodramatic he can be. When he's in a mood to sulk nothing can stop him." He shouted over his shoulder at the door and was rewarded by an indignant, "Oi!"

Levy laughed and it sent her lungs into more spasms. Lily poured her a cup of something pale and steaming, but she waved him off. " 'M fine," she insisted. "Even if I do sound like an old toad."

She smiled at him, pressing against the ache in her chest with her good hand, but he didn't look convinced. Fortunately for her he sat down anyway, leaving the terrible tea on the bedside table between them.

"Which war was it?" she asked, reaching for anything to keep the conversation going. If the pattern of the last few days held, he would have to leave soon and wouldn't be back until late that evening, and that would be more poking his head through the door than anything.

His left ear twitched, just the bare beginning of movement, before Lily forced it still. If Levy hadn't felt so desperate for the cat's company, she wasn't sure she even would have noticed the little tell.

"It's not important," Lily answered reaching down into his laundry basket for something. "Before I forget again, I brought you something."

Levy opened her mouth to press the question, and then squealed in delight when she saw her gift. "A book! Oh, Lily thank you!" she gushed, trying to twist her head around to read the spine, although what it was didn't even matter at this point, as long as she could read it.

The words were some ancient version of Ifkir. Levy frowned as she translated them in her head first. " _The...Use of Magic in Objects: From Daily Life to Warfare._ I've never heard of it before!"

Lily grinned as she took it from him. "It's one of the few I kept with me from Edolas. It's quite dated of course, but I thought you would appreciate the challenge."

She turned the old book over in her hands, noting the tiny spots of wear on the edges of the spine and back cover. But otherwise the pages were still cream colored and there were no stains. _Lily takes good care of his things_.

"I do," Levy assured him, already flipping to the cover page. There was a handwritten note written in neat looking letters in one corner, but it was too old and faded to read. Levy turned to the first chapter and furrowed her eyebrows in concentration. "Fascinating..." she mumbled as she turned the page. "I gotta say, Lily. I never would have expected to find someone as thoughtful as you down here with Gajeel the Foul Mouthed." She rolled her eyes and turned the page. "It's strange, how things turn out."

Lily chuckled. "No stranger than the lost princess of Fable breaking in and raising havoc," he told her, raising his eyebrows with a grin.

Levy jerked so hard she nearly fell out of the bed, taking Panther Lily with her. "Wha-wha- _hii-ack_!"

She turned away, coughing and wheezing into her blankets so she wouldn't ruin Lily's book. Her eyes watered, she couldn't catch her breath, and then steam wafted into her face as a hot cup was shoved into her hands.

Levy tried to groan and nearly choked on the sound.

"Drink it," Lily ordered, understanding anyway.

She scowled at the cup in her hands, chest heaving as she debated outright ignoring him. But the stuff _did_ help, even if the honey didn't cover the sharp tang of medicine like it was supposed to.

Levy pinched her nose closed and gulped the medicine down as quickly as she could. She gagged down the dregs and slammed the cup down on the bedside table.

"Ack! There," she croaked. "Happy?"

He raised a thin eyebrow. "Depends. Can you breathe now?"

Levy put a hand on her chest and carefully breathed in. There was still a pinch in her lungs, but the warmth of the honey-smoothed tea had loosened it. She nodded. "Better," she admitted, and then exhaled sharply in an almost cough.

Lily eyed her and made a grudging sound in the back of his throat, but flopped down anyway. Levy sat there, back stiff, and stared at him from the corner of her eye.

"H-how did you know?" she finally managed to whisper.

Lily rolled his eyes. "I'm not completely deaf and blind to the world, thank you. Besides, you talk in your sleep."

Levy felt her face flush brighter, and she knew it wasn't all from the exertion just to breathe. "Does...he know too?"

She couldn't understand why Lily looked so confused by the fear making her voice quake. "Not that I know of, but possibly. He's not stupid, Levy, despite all the evidence to the contrary." His whiskers twitched at her. "Why are you so scared he knows you're-?"

"Because!" she interrupted him quickly, not wanting the words out there again in case she was lucky enough that the dragon had missed them the first time. "I don't tell _anyone_ Lily. It's too dangerous to trust people with that, but a dragon? With all their hoarding instincts and those- those terrible stories. If he won't let a measly little thief leave, what do you think he'll do to a great big human jewelry stand?" She whispered so low she almost mouthed the words.

Lily actually laughed. "You think Gajeel is one of those princess-hoarding dragons? Really?" He laughed again.

Blue eyebrows creased together over Levy's brown eyes. "If you were me would you want to risk it?"

He still looked like he thought she was overreacting, but admitted, "No, I suppose not. But you are being ridiculous, just so you know."

Levy fiddled with a stray thread hanging from the blanket. "Please say you won't tell him. Please Lily? I really don't want that getting out." _To anybody. Mother's prized pick is still looking for me, even if she hasn't bothered. And who even knows what's going on in Makarov's head..._

Lily scrutinized her, then shrugged. "If it's really that important to you..."

Her shoulders sagged in relief. " _Yes_ , thank you Lily, thank you!" She exhaled in relief and hung her chin to her chest.

"In return you can promise to stay in bed and rest today," he told her as he hopped off his chair to retrieve his laundry basket.

Levy rolled her head back with a groan. "Ah, Lily..."

He held out a paw. "No, no, you have your book, you've taken your medicine, now all that's left is to sit there and finish getting better. Do that and maybe I'll forgive you for being such a rotten patient. Now, _stay_."

He pointed at her like he would command a dog to stay as he backed out of the room. Levy pursed her lips at him and pouted. "This better be a dang good book!" she shouted after him. "The first in a very long _series_!"

Levy waited, but all she heard was him dumping his basket in his room and then running out the door into the spiral.

"Huff," she grumbled as she flopped back into the pillows, drawing up her knees to act as a bookstand. "Bossiest cat I've ever met. Maybe I got it the wrong way round and Gajeel learned it all from Lily."

...

Lily left his clothes inside his door and then ran straight down the spiral. Gajeel wasn't quite smoking when he arrived, but his eyes were definitely glowing in the semi-dark.

"You're late," the dragon grumbled. "Again."

Amber eyes scowled at him, picking Gajeel's spiky form out easily in the gloom. All that talk about the past had left the cat in no mood for games. Gajeel heard everything in the mountain. He knew where he'd been and why.

"I lost track of time," Lily growled.

Gajeel snorted. "Again," he repeated.

"Yes, and you know why, so stop nitpicking and let's get on with it," Panther Lily snapped. "It's not like this is anything more than a formality anyway. Last week was the first time you've left this hole since Oak Town was anything more than a pile of tinder sticks." He grumbled as he flew up to the top of a colonnade where an empty gargoyle perch stuck out.

"You're the one always harpin' on formalities, Lil. I thought you woulda _enjoyed_ stickin' to the program."

Gajeel mocked him with a razor-edged smirk and Lily scowled hard at him, whiskers flicking as his jaw tensed. "I've still got rocks up here for the last stupid thing you said. Don't make me use them," he warned him.

"Yeah, yeah." The dragon scoffed. "Whatever. Just let the twerp take care of herself for a change, would ya?"

"Says the one that poisoned her."

Red eyes went flat. "Did you come here to work or not?" He shuffled on his forearms. "That wizard came back into town yesterday."

Lily's brow furrowed into a different kind of serious. "The dragon hunter? What did he say?"

Gajeel snorted. "Not much from his pine box."

Lily's ears swiveled to attention. "What?"

"Yeah," he rumbled, stretching his arm out and leaning onto his side. "Guess he found what he was lookin' for then."

"Or he ran afoul of a dark guild or tripped in the bath or a myriad of other, far more mundane things could have happened to him," Lily said quickly.

"Lil," Gajeel growled, "it's _us_. Since when are we lucky enough that the fool killed himself?"

"Yes. _We're_ the unfortunate ones at that funeral."

Gajeel snorted and rolled his eyes away. Lily shook his head at him. _Sulking again..._ he grumbled to himself. "Anything else that constitutes as news or has the baker's son broken up with the miller's daughter again?"

Steam rose up from Gajeel's head spines in the closest he ever came to blushing. "Shaddup!" he snapped. "And Zelda can do ten times better then that loser anyway. She's only with the guy to make her favorite brother's dream of starting his own bread empire a reality. Tch."

Lily grinned at him. "Aw, you do care. How cute."

Gajeel snorted steam, spines heating nearly red, and pointedly refused to look Lily's way. "You _do_ know yer little friend's out of bed, right?"

Panther Lily stared at him, not comprehending for a second. And then he jumped off the pillar and caught himself on the updraft blowing off Gajeel's heated scales.

...

Levy was almost to the door, book clutched to her chest with both arms, when Lily burst in. "What're you doing out of bed?"

His sharp words nearly cut her legs out from under her as her heart raced. "Lily!" she gasped weakly, the rest of her strength giving out. He caught her before she could hit the floor. "How'd you do that? I was being quiet," she insisted.

The Exceed scowled at her as he grew five feet and gingerly helped her back to her feet. "Not quiet enough," he told her. "Why aren't you resting?"

Levy groaned. "How can I rest in here? It's freezing and blue! I feel like I'm in an ice box, Lil. I was just going to the fireside. It's not that far."

"It's still too far for you," Lily told her with a scowl. "Now please, Levy. Just, sit and read would you?"

She pouted over the top edge of her book. "If I have to sit still that long, why can't it be out there where it's warm?"

Lily tried to stare her down, looked over his shoulder at the fire he'd started earlier that morning, and heaved a frustrated sigh. " _Fine_ ," he grumbled, scooping her up like she weighed less than a laundry basket and starting for the plush chairs. "As long as you promise you'll stay there while I talk with Gajeel-"

"Wait!" She reached back towards her room. "My quill!"

He paused. "Your quill?" Lily narrowed his orange amber eyes at her. "What does a recovering wizard need her magic quill for?"

Levy rolled her eyes at him. "To take notes of course. It never runs out of ink."

The Exceed's eyes narrowed further, but he went back anyway and picked her quill off her nightstand before turning back-

"The blanket too please!" she said before he could.

Lily sighed and the turn became a circle. It took some careful juggling, but he managed to grab that too.

"And, um, my water?"

Lily did _not_ glower at the woman he'd barely saved from his oldest friend's sheer stupidity. But he wanted to, and he thought his firm stare conveyed that as she shrunk behind the book he'd leant her like a shield. "In case I get thirsty..." she mumbled.

Air rolled out his nose in a rumble. "Well I'm running out of hands, Levy. You'll have to get that one yourself." Although he had to lean down so she was close enough to the table to pick it up.

"Anything else?" He raised pencil-thin eyebrows at her.

Levy quickly shook her head.

"Good," Lily said with a tight smile before moving her to one of the comfortable chairs near the fire so he could return to Gajeel.

But not before going back for one of her slippers that had fallen off halfway across the room.

...

Gajeel was tapping his claws against the ground unusually slow when Lily returned, and grey smoke was curling out of his nostrils. _Never a good sign._

"Her highness all put away neat and tidy? Doesn't need anything else?" the dragon grumbled.

Lily shook his head, glad Levy wasn't close enough to hear him or she might have given herself away on accident. "Don't be an nuisance, Gajeel. This is your fault, when all is said and done."

The dragon huffed, gray smoke billowing out above his head. "Like you'd let me forget it. Look, I'm glad the pipsqueak's not dead, but I'm not about to eat my own tail to make her feel better."

Lily snorted. "Might do you some good to lose some weight," he grumbled.

That got him a black look and a face full of acrid smoke. "Just shaddup and let's get some work done before your dainty little dandelion wakes up again."

...

The tug-of-war grew more heated over the next week. Snippets of annoyed conversations merging into one long chorus of complaints in Lily's head.

"Would you sit still for two seconds, cat?"

"It's been three days Lily. I _can_ walk, you know!"

"Oi, Lil-"

"Lily _please_!"

"Would you quit babyin' the runt, already? It's been over a week. Tell her to park it and quit gettin' in our way already."

...

 _# &%$!_

 _..._

Panther Lily threw down his notepad, fur standing on end all down his spine. " _Tell her yourself_!" he bellowed at the dragon, and then darted up the shaft before Gajeel could do more than stare at him like he'd chopped off all his whiskers with a pair of rusted scissors.


	8. Cracks

Hey lovely readers. I've been sick going on a month now and it stinks. Dx But in my miserable throes I read all the chapters of Hoarded I posted and it made me want to add more. Strange right? But apparently some of the best inspiration for authors is reading their own work. Sounds funny but it seems to work. ;3 Hope you're all doing well and you enjoy the next chapter! :)

* * *

Hoarded

Eight: Cracks

Lily didn't return that night like he said he would, and his bed was empty and still made the next morning.

"Lil?" Levy called in a whisper where she stood awkwardly in the doorway of his room. "Lily are you there?"

No answer. Levy bit her lip, feeling the rough crags in the archway with her working set of fingers. She didn't think Lily wouldn't answer just to spite her, which meant he really wasn't here. But where else would he go?

 _The kitchen maybe, or the armory. I'll check there._ Levy was already hobbling across their shared common room. She winced at her stiff legs, but if she shuffled, the aches and muscle pangs weren't so bad.

"Ouch!"

Although she stubbed her toes more.

Levy stopped outside their door, bracing herself on the squat column overlooking the shaft. Up looked a lot harder than down, and she craned her head up toward Lily's armory, hoping to hear the clangs and bangs and muttered profanity of an irritated Exceed, but all she heard was Gajeel snoring beneath her.

"Lily?" she tried again in a half-hearted whisper. She doubted he was up there and she didn't want to wake the dragon.

She turned around and started heading down, toward the kitchen. Down turned out to have its own difficulties. Her balance was still off, and Levy had to stop every so often when her head threatened to float away like a festival balloon. Gravity kept trying to trip her down the shallow decline but Levy didn't think she'd be able to get back up if she fell, especially with only one hand.

Levy refused to look down at her useless right arm, but its dead weight felt suddenly heavier in its sling.

The kitchen was empty and the stove cold. Levy found some dry oats and apples, and after cutting them all up and throwing them in a pot, she sat at the table to think as her oatmeal cooked.

 _I don't actually know what he does all day_ , Levy thought as she drummed her left fingers against the table and ignored how exhausted she felt just from walking fifty feet. _Gajeel never leaves his pit if he can help it._ She rolled her eyes. _But what does Lily do?_

Her forehead wrinkled as she frowned and thought. She'd kept such a wary eye on the dragon this whole time that Lily had slipped past her notice. She _thought_ she remembered hearing him working in the ventilation chamber after her fruitless climb through the shafts, and she assumed he was the one doing all the cooking because no one else was down here. She certainly hadn't done it and the idea of Gajeel fussing with that toy stove was outright laughable.

 _Wait._ Levy did remember something. Lily and Gajeel's voices rumbling around in the dark. _Not just once or twice either. Consistently, and usually sometime in the afternoon._

She looked at a marked candle, checking the time. _It's still a little early, but he's not anywhere else so maybe he's down there..._

Her stomach curdled at the thought of going down there again. Levy hadn't let herself think about it before, she'd been so focused on finding the back door, but it was literally a dark, dragon infested hole in the ground!

 _I would say 'what was I thinking' except obviously I wasn't!_ Levy snorted and clonked her head on the table. _No wonder that ended badly..._

She sat there a few more minutes, staring at the pantry door and debating with herself.

"It's not like he's in trouble, even if he is down there," Levy muttered. "Gajeel wouldn't hurt him, no matter how much they bicker. Lily's the one person he cares about outside of himself." She huffed a dark laugh, but didn't doubt for one second that was true. Gajeel was selfish, conceited, morose, crude – she could keep this list up for hours – but he relied on Lily. Not just as his...as his captain either, but as a kind of lifeline. When he got too caught up in his own head, Lily wasn't afraid to remind him he was acting like a moron and to cut it out.

"Honestly, I think he trusts Lily more than he trusts himself. Although it smells like he's still in a mood after their argument."

It took her a second to realize the burning smell wasn't coming from Gajeel.

Levy lunged to her feet, nearly sending herself nose first to the floor, and hobbled to the stove, catching herself on it and shoving the pot off the fire before she even regained her balance. She found the wooden spoon she'd used before and stirred the oatmeal around. A layer of black stuck to the bottom, but the rest only tasted singed.

"This is why I don't cook," Levy grumbled as she scraped the last spoonful from the bowl. Then she sat there, trying to convince herself that Lily was fine, that she didn't have to go down into that lightless hole to check on him.

"Hah- _chwoom_!"

Levy jumped so high her knees banged into the underside of the table. Rock dust rained down from the ceiling, sticking to the inside of her empty bowl until it looked like fuzz. There was a deep rumbling from outside, but she didn't recognize it as Gajeel muttering to himself until she left the kitchen and stuck her head out over the shaft.

Levy made out his sniffling and scowled. _I jumped over him sneezing?!_

"Are you _trying_ to bring this mountain down on our hands?" she shouted at the dragon before she could think better of it.

More sniffling. "Shaddup!" he shot back. "You're the one trying to smoke me out like some kind of weasel from a hole!"

 _You are a weasel!_ She almost shouted it, but swallowed the words back down. _Don't sink to his level,_ Levy told herself.

"All I'm trying to do is eat, thank you! What? You gonna lock me up for that, too?"

"Shaddup flesh bag!"

"Make me, reptile!"

...okay, so she would have to climb back to the moral high ground later.

There was another sneeze that shook the ground so hard, Levy lost her footing and fell hard on her backside. Her already rattled heart began pounding in her chest when she realized that the sound of rocks crumbling and hitting the ground was Gajeel climbing up to her.

She quickly climbed to her feet so he wouldn't loom over her like he had when he'd captured her, but she still needed the column's support to stay on her feet.

Gajeel rose like some fire-tempered beast rising from the center of the Earth, red eyes bright and hot. He looked her up and down and Levy felt her face burn as she realized how terrible she must look. She raised her chin and met his eyes, daring him to say anything about it.

Gajeel snorted. "No wonder you're such a runt, if that's all you eat."

Levy's mouth twisted. "And what do you know about cooking, grease-guzzler?"

He bared all his teeth at her and Levy took a step back before she realized he was grinning at her. "At least mine's _supposed_ to be black, Shorty."

Levy scowled harder and reclaimed her lost ground. "I haven't heard you say one nice thing since I got here."

He scratched behind his head spines with a long claw. "So?"

"So I think Lily's right, all you do is sulk down here like some great big armored baby!" She propped her good hand on her hip, elbow sticking out. "What's your problem? The last human you met ditch you for another dragon?"

"Oi!" He fumed, quite literally. Black smoke edged in red huffed out his wide nostrils. "Like you're so much better, runt? Let's not forget how you broke into my home to steal my stuff."

"Oh, like I could forget with you reminding me every five minutes. It was one mistake!" She held up a finger and then tucked her arm under her sling, taking some of the weight off her shoulder. "Believe me, I wish I'd never made it."

Gajeel snorted, clenching his dagger-like teeth together. For one ridiculous moment, she thought she'd insulted him. Then-

"You'n me both," he growled, swinging his large head away from her. Light from the torches caught on the sharp edges of his scales, sliced into brilliant ribbons.

Frustration bubbled up inside Levy's chest like floodwater, and she gripped her right wrist through the sling. She didn't feel a thing. Not even the pressure. "Look, where's Lily? He didn't sleep in his bed last night and I'm worried."

"He's out," Gajeel grumbled, leveraging a massive forearm up onto the spiral walkway, the other braced against the level above his head. Small rocks rained down on Levy's head, and she stepped back. "Unlike you, he can take care of himself. He had to run something past a couple of old friends of his."

"Couple more than you've got I bet," Levy grumbled.

Gajeel scowled and then his lips curled up in a smirk. "Jealous I trust him more than you, Shrimp?"

"Oh, you caught me. I'm turning green to my hair line." Levy scoffed and rolled her eyes, but the effect was diminished when she winced as a muscle high in her right arm pulled.

The dragon noticed, red eyes flicking to her sling for the first time. "What'd you do to yourself now, pipsqueak? Get caught in a door?"

Levy's face burned so hot she thought her own eyes might turn as red as Gajeel's. "What did I do?" She took a step towards the dragon's large head. "What did _I_ do? You- you metal idiot! _This_ -" She slapped her numb arm and swallowed down the sour bitterness rising in her mouth when she felt nothing, "-is _your_ fault!"

Gajeel raised a rivet-lined brow at her.

Levy grit her teeth until they creaked, squeezing her eyes shut until she saw stars. "Whatever you did – whatever was in that magic of yours – it ruined my arm! I can't even wiggle my little finger, much less hold a pen! And I can't-" She hated how her voice cracked. "I can't feel my magic anymore..."

She couldn't make herself look at him, but she felt him watching her. Then he snorted, warm air washing over her and rifling through her blue hair.

"Tch. Stupid cat. I told him not to let it settle, but he was probably too busy spoon feeding you to listen to me. You're arm's not ruined," he stopped grumbling to himself to tell her. "It's just kinda...paralyzed."

The hope that reached up to strangle her plummeted. "How is that any better?" she screamed at him, tears pricking at her eyes.

An irritated rumble rolled around his chest and he scratched at the top of his serpentine neck. "No, look- it's, it's rocks to sand, get it?"

Levy frowned up at him. "Get _what_?"

Gajeel rumbled again, but Levy was too busy beating down her hope trying to carry her away to pay much attention.

"Look." The word was like rocks falling downhill. "The...stuff I added, it's permanent, but the reason ya can't move yer hand is cause it's settled there, like sediment. If ya break it up with yer human magic, mix it in with the rest of yer blood, it'll be too diluted to have any real effect."

"Like rocks beaten down into sand," Levy murmured, heart thudding in her chest as she suddenly remembered her mother speaking in another woman's voice in her dream. "But I thought," she spoke up hesitantly, "that I almost died because it had already gotten into my blood?" Was this just another trick? A sneaky way to kill her without Lily blaming Gajeel when she just dropped down dead?

Gajeel was still watching her. Levy wondered if he knew what she was thinking. "You had a lot more in ya when Lily found ya up there, enough that if it reached yer heart, it would have paralyzed it like yer hand. They got most of it out of you." He inclined his head at her slung arm. "This is just the leftovers."

He hadn't actually answered her question. "But if I do...breakup whatever-it-is, it _won't_ kill me, right?" she pressed, scrutinizing his face.

"Not if you're careful," he told her.

Levy swallowed convulsively. So this could still kill her. Great.

But...

She hung her head. "If I am careful," she whispered, "and I do dilute these remnants, will I get my magic back?"

Levy felt Gajeel staring at the crown of her head. And then he laughed coarsely. She glared at him, not exactly surprised he found her desperation funny.

"You've still got your magic, Shrimp!" His voice boomed around her. Levy's head snapped up, mouth hanging open. The infuriating beast was smirking again. "If you're too scared to try and use it after getting burned, that's your damage."

Levy bridled, ready to chew him up and spit him out again when a cloud of dust enveloped her, making it difficult to breathe.

She coughed her lungs clear and found Gajeel turning away, his claws scraping a new shower of gravel from the rocks. "Look, it's your hand, your problem, so try it or not, I don't care. Just do it quietly. I've got stuff to do and none of it involves your noise pollution."

He dropped down the shaft before Levy could think of an adequate comeback.

...

 _Big, enormous...dummy._

Levy sighed in exasperation and threw herself down in an overstuffed chair. "If that's the best you've got, Levy, he really did win that round."

She let her head fall back and stared up at the ceiling. Her magic sense was a buzzy cloud around her head, lifting up flyaway hairs in a static cloud. She tried to ignore it, but magic had a powerful lure, like an open library door on a Sunday afternoon. She missed it. Like she missed her books.

Levy held her left hand over her head and followed the lines of her fingers where the tendons disappeared into the back of her hand. It was so galling that he was right. _Technically I could use my left hand if it came down to it. It's just...to lose my hand..._

Her throat squeezed closed and Levy closed her eyes, resting the back of her hand on her forehead. She hadn't thought about her right hand much since she'd woken up, unable to bring herself to face the fact that...that she might never...

Levy kicked her legs and sat up so fast her head spun. She untied the knot at the back of her neck and the sling dropped away, her arm falling with it. It lay there at an awkward angle in her lap. Her fingers had relaxed some. She still couldn't move them, not even a useless twitch, but they weren't curled rigor morits tight into her palm anymore.

She sat there, staring at her fingers in concentration. _Move, blast you, move!_

But how could her hand move when she couldn't feel it? Levy could feel the weight of it against her leg, could feel it was still warm. She could even see the tick of her pulse in her wrist, but the limb itself was blank, closed off, almost like it had been replaced by a mechanical arm in her sleep.

 _You can do this_ , she told herself, biting the inside of her cheek and ignoring the little voice saying it would be smarter to wait for Lily to come back so she could double check Gajeel's story. _You can do this, Levy McGarden! So just- stop thinking and do it!_

She gripped her forearm with her left hand and focused. There was so much magic built up from her time recovering that it was easy to tap in to. Too easy, as it turned out.

"Sss!" Levy hissed as magic shot down her arm bones like gunpowder, fizzling out around her wrist. The pain faded like fireworks landing in a bucket of ice water. She still couldn't feel her fingers, but something _had_ shifted...

 _If only I could see what..._ She leaned around the chair and grabbed her pack from behind the chair. She rifled around in it one handed, then grumbled to herself as she upended the whole thing on the table. Her bright red glasses frames were easy to pick out in the muted colors of her travel things. Levy flipped the stems out and shoved the glasses on her nose, activating the search-and-find spell laid inside the lenses.

 _Thank you Freed_ , Levy thought as the world turned black and white. She looked around, double checking the spell, but shouldn't have doubted her old mentor's ability with a jutsu shiki spell. _Especially since ocular spells are a specialty of his._

Her room looked like a scene from an old movie lacrima. Everything except her hand. It was blinding in this new sight, and Levy saw the magic had settled like Gajeel had said, coating the muscles and bones and hardening around them both like dried glue.

 _But the magic is obviously corrupted. Yellowed like book pages maybe?_

Levy winced as she pushed more magic against the blockage in her arm. It hurt, but nothing like it had before.

"Oh..." Levy gasped. Small cracks edged through the yellow gunk, reaching toward her wrist like little fingers. In the second sight of her glasses, they looked like black lines cutting through the yellow like spider webbing. "I hope that means it's working," she murmured as small flakes of yellow drifted up the length of her arm, traces of the magic caught up in her circulation.

Levy frowned. If any of them were still toxic... If Gajeel had lied to her...

"So help me, I'll at least be able to move my own fingers before I die," Levy muttered, and then bit the inside of her cheek as she shoved her magic at the corruption.

She chipped away at the crust, gasping when she struck muscle instead. Her freed tissue felt raw, exposed, but the whole process felt painstaking more than painful. Like Gajeel had said, the acid she'd felt before as she hacked at the spell on the door had been washed out, leaving a very old, very stubborn bandage that needed to be peeled away before it caused more problems.

Levy flashed her magic brightly, shoving it to the tips of her fingers so her nails glowed slightly, and the last remaining yellow capping her finger pads disintegrated into fine sand. Her hair was plastered to her face from the cold sweat covering her face, and every gasp of air felt like ice inside her chest. She was too hot, and felt more than a little sick, but Levy ignored it all as she stared at her hand, finally as black and white as the rest of the room.

 _Please work_... Levy thought as she pulled off her glasses, the spell inside them falling inert. The muted colors of the room came back, although her skin still looked white, she was so pale. Levy concentrated on her fingertips.

They twitched in an uncoordinated wave.

Levy winced as the worst pins and needles of her life began to slide away the numbness in her arm, but couldn't help but laugh in sheer relief as she felt each little nerve ending stutter back to life. She wiggled her index finger back and forth, and the digit responded with sluggish determination. The muscles burned from disuse, but they still moved.

Something between a sob and a laugh slipped past her panting. "It- it worked," she whispered as she rolled over onto her side and stared at her hand through half-open eyes. The room spun in her peripheral and her stomach felt halfway up her throat as the magical debris traveled through the rest of her body. She felt like a watered down version of herself, not that much different then when she'd tried to open that door, but she couldn't let herself think about that right now. She could move her hand again. That's what mattered.

 _My hand's mine again._ Her lips twitched upward. _I can write and turn pages and fasten my own laces again. Gajeel didn't lie..._

That was all she needed as she passed out, still wiggling her thumb in front of her nose.


	9. Nothing, Nothing at All

Hi readers! Just wanted to thank you all for reading and your lovely reviews! Every one of you is awesome! :D And now, more Hoarded!

* * *

Hoarded

Nine: Nothing, Nothing At All

Levy danced around her room when she woke up the next morning, partly because she'd forgotten she could move her hand again, but mostly because she wasn't dead.

"That's a nice surprise," she told herself as she marveled at her stiff but moving fingers. "I wasn't exactly sure of that when I passed out last night."

She gleefully brushed her hair out with her fingers. Beamed as she dressed herself, gloating over each and every stubborn button. And danced around the kitchen with dried fruits in each hand before tossing them into the pot and stirring a spoon through the sticky oatmeal with both hands.

Page-flipping and note-taking lost all tediousness the next few days, her papers decorated with little flourishes and silly doodles of dancing figures. And she cast enough LIGHT spells to give herself a tan over the next few days, just because she still could.

And then she abruptly ran out of things to do.

"I can't believe this," Levy muttered as she shoved her hands under her arms and paced the edges of the common room, its tables carpeted with papers and her open travel journel. "A dragon downstairs and I'm bored out of my skull!"

She raked a hand through her blue hair, making the short strands stand at even more outlandish angles. Her eyes landed on the dark gray curtain shielding Lily's room from view. It was so quiet without him around. Levy sighed, wishing her friend would come back.

 _Gajeel probably knows how long he'll be gone..._

Levy stopped halfway to her door. "Where did that come from?" she wondered. She looked down at her hand and flexed her fingers. They were still stiff from their paralysis, but even that had started to fade. "He fixes one of his own mistakes and we're friends? I don't think so."

She put her hand down, rubbing at her fingers and wondering where her rings had got to. "Nothing's changed. Nothing important anyway. I'm still a prisoner and no one knows where I am, so no." Levy heaved a sigh. "Nothing important has changed at all."

And what was worse, Levy realized, was that she'd run out of ideas. None of her digging around had revealed any possible way out except the front door, and without knowing what it was Gajeel had tainted the magic with, she couldn't inoculate herself against it.

Levy realized she was staring at her hand again and clenched her fingers into a fist. "I've got my hand back and my magic too. That's something." She looked around the empty room. "I guess I'll just have to let everything else sort itself out."

The idea didn't sit well with her.

Levy scratched an itch under her collar and realized with a grimace she had accidentally put her sick clothes back on. She'd run out of clean clothes yesterday and had started recycling until Lily could return and show her how he washed anything.

"And I gave all those borrowed ones back to Lily. They're probably back in that room I landed in when I fell out of the air vent." Levy shook her head. "Well if it was okay to wear them the first time, I don't see why it'd be off limits now. It'll be like shopping, except I have to give everything back... Oh!" Her eyes lit up. "Like a fashion library!"

That did put a spring in her step as she left the room.

Without anything better to do, Levy took her time sorting through everything in the storage room. "Eugh!" She stuck her tongue out and made a face at a particularly ugly day gown, and then shoved it back behind the other hangers so she wouldn't have to look at it. "Where did he get some of this stuff? And why?" she muttered as she shuffled through fabric so old it was a miracle it didn't crumble at her touch. She pulled at a sliver of spring green and found the seventh century's idea of a practical joke.

"It's not like he can wear any of this. Or _should_." She snorted as she pulled out another train wreck so she could see what was buried underneath it, tossing it over her shoulder in a pile she had labeled "Fashion Expletives".

"Oh, here's something..." There was a blue dress hiding behind a froth of superfluous ribbons, with a square neckline and only a few laces at the back so she could get it on without help. Levy pulled it out and held it up to herself. It only reached her knees, but it looked like it would fit.

"Probably made for a much younger girl," Levy mumbled as she rearranged the folds of the skirt with her free hand, the other one flattened against her stomach to keep the dress from falling. "One it would reach the floor on, even in her first heels."

It was entirely inappropriate, not to mention incredibly impractical, and no doubt her mother would faint on the spot if she knew Levy was even thinking about showing that much of her legs...

Levy ducked behind a folding screen to try it on.

"Must've lost some weight down here," Levy muttered after she'd gotten it tied at the back. She cinched the sash a little tighter around her narrow waist to make up the difference, and blatantly ignored the fact a child's dress still left an inch or two loose in the bust.

"Not bad." Levy grinned at the mirror in the back of the room. "First dress I've actually wanted to wear anywhere."

"Oi runt! What d'ya think yer doin' in there?"

Levy peered around the screen only to find a massive head blocking the entrance. She frowned at the blinking red eye out of reflex. "Changing!" she called back. "So you'd better stop peeping if you want to keep that eye."

Gajeel snorted, sending the smell of dark smoke creeping inside the storage closet, but swung his head away with a grumble. "Don't get yer hopes up, Shorty. You're not my type. Just get out here, would you?

Levy gave it a minute, not about to jump just because he said so. She looked down, briefly wondering if she really should change, then shrugged. _Not like it matters_ , she thought as she walked out in her woolen socks and too short dress.

Gajeel was perched in his usual place along the wall of the central shaft, a bored look on his scaled face. He raised an eyebrow at her when he saw what she was wearing, and Levy lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest, partly so he wouldn't see how loose it was. "Well," she demanded, "what do you think?"

"You look like a flat-chested Kewpie doll."

Levy kept her expression bland. "Seventeen," she told him.

The dragon screwed his eyes up at her. "Huh?"

Brown eyes rolled as Levy shifted her weight to her other foot. "It took you seventeen days to run out of creative insults. 'Flat-chested'?" She gestured down at herself. "Really Gajeel, I know you can do better."

Gajeel snorted, but didn't argue. "So I'm off my game. I usually sleep when Lily's gone."

"Like that's such a difference from when he's here," Levy muttered.

Red eyes narrowed at her, and her heart only skipped one beat before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. "What was that Shorty?" Gajeel growled at her.

She rolled her eyes again. "I'm just saying," Levy told him, waving her right hand at him. "All you do it sleep down here in the dark all day. If you were a human, I'd think you were depressed."

She grinned at him, obviously teasing, but Gajeel stared at her. Levy jerked, looking down at herself and pressing her hands to her bodice as she wondered, _Oh what now?_ Then she realized he wasn't staring at her, but her hand.

Her smile was far more genuine as she held it up and wiggled her fingers at him, one after the other. "Good as new, or almost anyway. I can tie my own laces like a big girl and everything."

Gajeel watched her, red eyes switching from her hand to her face. Levy didn't quite understand his expression, but she had the almost unnerving feeling that she'd managed to impress him.

He didn't say so, and Levy breathed in relief when he turned away with a small, half-hearted, "Tch. Big might be stretching the truth a bit there, Shorty."

Levy rolled her eyes, wondering what had the dragon acting even stranger than usual. "Did you want something?" she asked pointedly. "Or did you just get tired of talking to yourself down there?"

The dragon scowled at her. "I _want_ to know what you think you're doing, touchin' all my stuff without my say so. I thought humans were big on asking first."

"I'm looking for something to wear, what's it look like?" She fluffed her skirt and watched the fabric sway.

"Like you're throwing yerself a surprise party. Now go put it back." Gajeel twitched a claw at the closet.

Levy propped her fists on her hips, ignoring the way the light flashed down the razor sharp edge of his claw. "Why?" she demanded, looking him up and down. "It's not like you're gonna use it, unless you lose fifty tons and have a preference for satin skirts."

He huffed a charcoal gray cloud at her, letting it envelope her head. Levy held her breath as she tried to wave it away. "It's _mine_ , no matter what it is. How many times I gotta say it before your pipsqueak brain understands, huh? Now go put it back." He pointed firmly at the archway behind her.

"No," Levy said. He thought he was the only stubborn one around here? Ha! "I like it!"

"Like it or not, it's still mine," Gajeel snapped, gripping a column with one claw and swinging the other so he pointed across the shaft at her room. "Now get back in your own grubby little clothes and get back in that room, runt, before-"

"Enough!" Levy screamed. "My name is Levy. Not short stuff or twerp or runt. _Levy_. And I'm not some- some problem you can deal with by locking me up and saying 'well that's that'! _You're_ the one that said I couldn't leave! _You're_ the one that started this, so suck it up and quit acting like this is my fault! No one knows you're down here so how was I supposed to, huh? All the dragons are supposed to be dead!"

It all boiled out of her like a stew pot left over the fire too long. Her heart raced and something yellow started to pound behind her eyes. Maybe that was what had the tears stinging at the corners of her eyelids too.

Levy turned sharply on her heel, not caring she'd left her boots in the storage room with her own sweat encrusted tunic and capris. She was so sick of this, of skulking around like a rat lost in a dungeon cell-

"All the dragons are dead."

The strange sounds were nearly lost in Gajeel's broad chest, the draconic words sounding slurred to Levy's ears. But she still understood them.

Levy froze, and turned over her shoulder. He was watching her, waiting for something, some sign, though she couldn't think what. Something...the same, she decided. Like him. Something that understood.

"What did you say?" Levy whispered.

Gajeel looked away, but couldn't hide his heavy disappointment. "Nuthin'," he growled, then dropped away down the shaft, wings extended just enough to keep him from dropping like a stone.

Levy ran to the edge and watched as his metal body disappeared into the keep. She'd failed some kind of test, she realized, but how could she have passed when she didn't even know what he wanted?

Understanding dawned. _He wanted me to understand what he said. Only like the stubborn fool he is, he didn't want to come out and ask me upfront if I knew draconic! I only asked what he said because I couldn't believe my ears, but he thinks..._

Levy took off running down the spiral, wool socks collecting grit and small pieces of gravel in the coarse fibers. Gajeel made no sense to her. He couldn't stand her, but wouldn't let her leave. Almost every object he possessed he couldn't even use, but he wouldn't let any of it go. It all made about as much sense to Levy as snow cones in winter.

But that loneliness she'd seen in his eyes...

Levy understood that all too intimately.

...

She ran all the way down the spiral, ignoring the cold knife in her chest and the gloom of Gajeel's keep as she entered the forbidden level. Gajeel was wrapped around himself on his raised next, red eyes dim as he stared into the dark. They only flicked to her when Levy came stumbling to a step next to him, hands on her knees as she gasped for air.

"Whaddya want Shorty?" Gajeel sounded even surlier than usual.

"Ya-you," Levy panted, "-are a hatchling with small wings."

Gajeel was silent. Levy peered up from where she leaned over, and smiled when she saw she'd managed to stun his mouth wide open, although she wasn't sure if it was because she'd called him a child throwing a fit or that she'd done it in draconic.

He still hadn't spoken by the time she regained her breath.

Levy straightened up with a wide smile. "Did I stutter, Gajeel?" she asked sweetly in the same way, although quite literally it meant 'has my tongue tripped over your meager understanding?'

That might explain why one side of his wide mouth pulled up. He lifted his head and fixed her with one eye to try and hide it. "At least I still don't fit in a hatchling's scales." He smirked at her, showing teeth. "I'd say the only way left for you to grow is out, but you can't even do that right." He snickered.

"Well we can't all follow in your big fat footsteps." Levy smirked back.

Gajeel stared at her, and for a brief second Levy thought she'd won their little game. Then he burst out laughing.

"What?" Levy demanded when he started wheezing and smoking like an old bellows. "What'd I say?"

He could barely breathe he laughed so hard, his peculiar _gihi_ laugh sounding like a wheezy old dog.

"Oh come on," Levy chided, reverting back to her native tongue until she knew what she'd messed up. "It can't have been _that_ funny."

Gajeel laughed harder.

Levy huffed as he rolled onto his back, legs waving in the air as he squirmed. "Ya-you said," he finally started to regain control of himself. "That not even ducks would follow me because I am a big fat paperclip."

"I did-" Levy started to deny it, and then felt her face burst into flame. Dang it, she had!

Gajeel guffawed at her non-denial, one scarred forearm clutching his stomach as he kicked up dust with his lashing tail. Levy changed tactics.

"Of course I did!" she insisted, sweeping a hand at him. "Look at you. All that armor and teeth and what do you do all day but keep the sharp ends folded in on yourself. You're a perfect-" How had she mispronounced footsteps before? "- _arrik_."

"Gihi," Gajeel chuckled as he rolled himself upright and resettled his wings against his back. "That's a paper slicer, Shortstuff. You call 'em scissors. _H'arrik_ ," he said it clearly, the _ha_ barely there.

Levy listened, nodding. "And, um...footsteps?"

His jaw opened just slightly in a reptilian smirk. " _Varik_."

"Oh," Levy hung her head and moaned "I knew that one too..."

Gajeel watched her as he folded his forearms underneath his chest. "You weren't bad actually," he told her. "For a flesh bag," he amended.

Levy shot him a sour look before the dragon added, "Not even Lily knows that much. Where'd you learn it?"

There was an iron patio chair leaning against the bottom of a scrap heap and Levy dragged it over. She shrugged as she sat down, her weight tilting the chair back on its one shortened leg. "Books, mostly. Although my mentor, Freed, he taught me the root language."

"Freed," Gajeel tested the name against his teeth, filing it into his memory. The suspicious holdout in Levy's mind hoped she hadn't just put Freed's name on some kind of draconian hit list. "He a word wizard too?"

Levy nodded. "Jutsu Shiki mostly."

The dragon's scales stiffened along the ridge of his neck, and it belatedly occurred to Levy that maybe she shouldn't talk so much about a wizard who specialized in traps. "He's a librarian," she quickly added, smiling nervously. "Magic doesn't exactly pay the bills nowadays, you know? Not without noble patronage anyway."

Gajeel snorted. "Right, and librarians are just rolling in it." But the scales on his neck eased slightly.

"He has a number of rare books in his collection," she told him, sitting a little easier herself. "He let me look at them a few times, but only on special occasions."

She saw a thought stick itself to the forefront of the dragon's mind. He tilted his long head at her. "Is that why you came here for old books?" he asked. "Lookin' for books for your magic master's library?"

Levy stared up at the dragon a moment before she remembered to shake her head. She must have said it a hundred times since she came here – _I only wanted to read the books!_ – only she'd never said it to Gajeel himself. He hadn't cared enough to listen.

"No," she said slowly. "I was looking for myself. I wanted to read something for myself. Something that...only a dragon had read before."

He laughed like she'd expected, but it was a dry chuckle instead of the loud boisterous laugh he'd let loose before. "So dragon treasure then."

"Dragon treasure," Levy repeated with a nod.

Gajeel settled his long neck down, placing his head along the curve of his nest so Levy sat squarely in his line of vision. He shot her a smirk, ash-white smoke curling from his nostrils. "Yer life must've been rust-rot dull if you thought dragon treasure would fix it," he rumbled.

Levy thought back to the countless parties, engagements, balls, dances, tea lessons, and embroidery circles she'd endured and smiled wryly at him. "You have no idea."

His red eyes narrowed at her, just slightly, and a borderline curious rumble rolled up his neck. For a moment, Levy thought he would ask about her life before.

Then he raised his eyebrow at her, the teasing light back in his eye. "So," he asked," how many other languages you _almost_ know?"

Levy lifted her chin. "More than you, I bet."

His smile turned positively wicked. "Ya thinks so, huh?"

...

Lily dreamed Gajeel ate Levy so many times he cut his trip to New Extalia short. He knew it was ridiculous, that Gajeel would no more eat a human then he would eat...well, Lily. But no one knew better how foolishly stubborn they both could be then Panther Lily.

"It would be just my luck I come back to find them trying to kill each other," the black-furred Exceed grumbled under the wind as he flew closer to his mountain home. "Maybe they kept their heads and avoided each other while I was gone."

He hoped, but didn't believe it for a moment. _Stubborn fools_.

He circled the mountain peak out of old habit, scanning the surrounding area for intruders and spies, but the nooks and crannies and grueling passes through the range were all empty this close to winter.

Lily frowned to himself as he completed his pass. _Was she really traveling out here all by herself?_

The possibility that she wasn't concerned him, but there was no time to check the Oak Town rumor mill. He could already feel the electric pull of magic sending static rippling down his fur. Lily surged upward, out of the wind circling the mountain peak, looped himself over his tail, and dove straight down toward the highest crags. Even knowing what to expect, Lily still flinched as the sharp rocks filled his vision.

A shock enveloped him, sending his fur standing in all directions like a powder puff, a shriek of indignation from the wind as it was forced into a smaller space, and Lily was home.

He stretched out his white wings, slowing quickly, before angling one and circling along the shaft. Lily sighed in relief. _All's quiet..._

A high pitched scream nearly knocked him out of the air.

"The sub-level!" Lily realized. He wrestled his wings under control and shot down like a black and white bullet. She must have gone down looking for a way out again – or Gajeel goaded her into it. _But he swore up and down he would leave her alone!_

"-scale ya and turn you into soup," Gajeel's voice rolled out of the lowest level. Levy shrieked again and Lily's tail fluffed out like a terrified dandelion.

"Gajeel no!" he shouted as he plunged into the dark. He could hear Levy whimpering somewhere close but he didn't see her. Why was there never any light down here?

Lily blinked and his feline eyes adjusted. He could just make out Levy curled up in a ball on the far side of the nest, shaking like a leaf.

Gajeel swung his head around and scowled at him. "What's got yer tail in a knot _now_ Lily? I'm not pickin' on the shrimp and yer still not happy. Yeesh." He rolled his eyes and turned back to Levy. "Anyway, like I was sayin', this nut bag fisherman keeps whackin' away at me with his little knife, swearin' up and down I'll make the best fish stew he's ever tasted-"

Levy shrieked with laughter again, rolling in her chair as she fought to breathe.

"-when Fuzzface here-" He jerked his chin at Lily standing there with his mouth open, "-tells him it's a pretty stupid thing to do, killing the Fish King, because how else is he gonna get his wishes?"

Levy contorted over the bent arm of her chair, one arm thrown over her watering eyes.

"Next thing I know this guy is yelling, 'All Hail the Mighty Fish King!' and rubbing my foot like I'm some kind of lucky iron rabbit, asking for all the fish he could ever eat. Then I'm stuck spending the rest of the day watching a bunch of fish hooks in an empty lake while Lily went looking for whatever loony bin this guy escaped from." Gajeel shrugged. "Turns out, he was the town mayor after all."

Levy finally fell out of her chair and the thing crashed down on top of her. Lily jogged over to make sure she was all right, but the girl was still laughing when he reached her. He looked between her and Gajeel. "What in Earth-Land are you doing?" he demanded as he moved the rusted chair off Levy and helped her sit up.

"H-he thin-thinks he kna-kna-knows more languages than ma-me!" Levy squealed.

For a moment Lily was sure he must have heard her wrong. Then he turned and stared up at Gajeel. "And you picked the Fish King story to do it?" he yelled. He would not laugh. He would not laugh. He would not-

Gajeel rolled his eyes. "I was telling her about traveling through Ca Elum and it just kinda slipped out." He shot him an embarrassed grin that was all reflective teeth.

Lily chuckled, sitting himself down next to Levy and crossing his arms over his chest. "You must be quite the wordsmith, Levy. Very few have ever managed to get Gajeel to admit what he _doesn't_ know, even with magic."

Levy giggled as she wiped tears from her eyes.

"Hey, I told the guy I was the Dragon King! _Dra-gon_ ," Gajeel tried to defend himself, shuffling his claws so they hung over the edge of his nest. "It wasn't my fault he was outta his gourd..."

"You said fish. Don't try and deny it." Lily smirked.

Gajeel huffed and heavily shifted his weight, slamming into the rock with his shoulder with a sound like a giant's silverware drawer being upended. He scoured it against the stone, raining down rocks, as he scratched an itch.

Huffing and giggling, Levy managed to gain enough breath to sit up and wipe the tears from her eyes. "Ya-you- _hee hee_ – you're Lumish is – _ha ha!_ – is worse than my Alvereze!"

Gajeel huffed, the smoke curling out his nostril turning ashen at the mention of Earth-Land's larger continent. "Yeah well, I bet you're sand speak is better than mine. I refuse to speak it."

"Refuse?" Levy asked still drying her face. "Whatever for? Sure the language is difficult, but once you realize-"  
"I don't care that it's hard," Gajeel snapped, startling Levy where she knelt on the floor with her legs folded under her. "I care that they're a bunch of poisonous rats that'll stab you in the back with a smile on their faces. I hate 'em all, and I won't touch anything that has to do with that sand scoured continent."

Levy stared up at the dragon, his face harder than before. Lily watched them both, hair threatening to stand on end. He didn't like the shift in the air.

Gently he touched a paw to Levy's right arm, drawing her attention down to him. "Gajeel and I have had...dealings with the people of Alverez. Long ago."

"Not long enough to forget," Gajeel grumbled, huffing black smoke.

Levy nodded, but Lily could see she didn't understand. _Good_ , he thought. _Some things shouldn't be reawakened._

He found a distraction when he realized she was using both hands to dry her face.

"Levy!" Lily cried, startling her as he grabbed her fingers with his paw. They felt warm now, and they moved freely when he wiggled them around. "You're moving your arm again!"

The girl smiled at him, then stretched her fingers all the way out and curled them to her palm for him to see. "Gajeel showed me how," she told him. Lily didn't think he imagined the surprise still lingering in her voice.

Panther Lily turned, mouth hanging slightly open, and raised his eyebrows at the dragon. Gajeel huffed and looked away, but didn't deny it.

The Exceed stood there for a moment, so flabbergasted he couldn't think what to say. "What changed?" he finally asked. "When I left, you couldn't even speak civilly to each other."

They both gave him blank looks, then Gajeel shrugged as Levy said, "Nothing, I don't think."

Looking between them, Lily didn't quite believe Levy, but clearly he wouldn't get the truth out of either one today. Whatever had happened, he felt glad for it.

"You know," Lily murmured, his face relaxing into a smile, "when I heard you shrieking down here, I was afraid Gajeel had finally snapped and was trying to eat you."

Levy balked as the dragon threw back his head and guffawed. "I do not shriek!"

"Naw, you just cackle like an old lady!" Gajeel's laughter boomed right through their smaller bodies, making their bones buzz.

Levy eyed him with a stern look, and then it melted away into a far too pleasant expression. "You should know better than anyone how safe I was Lil," she said loudly. "Gajeel wouldn't eat me. He's a _vegetarian_."

"Oi!" Gajeel huffed, swiveling his large head to fix Levy's beaming face with one eye. "Watch yer mouth ankle biter."

But the girl grinned instead of flinched, and there was none of the bite that had been behind Gajeel's words before Lily had left.

The black cat smiled to himself as he watched them bicker. _Nothing my good eye_ , he decided before leaning back on his paws to watch them trade insults like a tennis match.


	10. It's a Message in a Bottle, Except Not

Well, 2018 is almost over, so I guess the first thing that needs to be said is Happy New Year everyone! I hope no matter what kind of year you had, the next one tops it in wonder, joy, and strength. And good health! Which is something I've been missing for literally the last four months. :( Like a few days after I posted my last chapter, I came down with...something. I don't even know what to call it but it kept me from eating (imagine my super angry face here!)

Yeah... it hasn't been fun. I've also been to one funeral and prayed fervently for a family member who quite literally had brain surgery. But at least I got to eat my own birthday cake and didn't feel nauseous on Christmas. Yay?

So yeah. Tough year. Which is probably why I really wanted to get at least one more chapter up before 2019. It's not very long, but important. Hee hee... ;)

* * *

Hoarded

Ten: It's a Message in a Bottle, Except Not

"I got you a few things while I was out."

Levy looked over at Lily across the dinner table that evening. "Oh?"she said, not sure what to expect. "First a book from another Earth and now things? You'll spoil me if you're not careful, Lily." She smiled at him, only a trace of bitterness hidden in the back of her throat.

He gave her a lazy smile in return. "If a whole palace full of servants couldn't do it, I doubt I can," he told her before taking another bite of their wild leek and duck soup. If tasted quite good, but Levy suddenly didn't feel so hungry as her eyes flicked to the open archway. Gajeel didn't appear in a wild rampage, so she hoped that meant he hadn't heard. _Although what's he going to do if he_ does _learn I'm a princess? Kidnap me again?_

Levy shook her head and tried to look normal as Lily said, "It's nothing fancy, just some clothes of your own, some paper, a new quill-"

"A magic quill?" Levy sat up straight in her chair.

Lily nodded with a cheerful smile. "Since it was Gajeel's fault yours it unsalvageable, I figured it was only fair. This one's orange though. I couldn't find a blue one. I hope that's all right?"

She could practice the finer points of her magic again and maybe even get a message out to someone that could help her get out of here. She would have taken an enchanted stick.

Levy beamed and nodded rapidly. "More than fine! Orange is my favorite color."

"Good." Levy sounded pleased. He bent his head over his soup bowl, and then said just a little too casually, "I hope there was no one in town waiting to hear from you. It feels ridiculous to make them worry so much over a broken quill."

 _Subtle_ , Levy thought, wondering why Lily didn't just come right out and ask her if anyone had known she was coming here. And then she realized it was probably for the same reason her first instinct was to lie.

She managed to ignore her guilt long enough to give Lily a weak smile. "No," she told him the truth. "Nothing like that. I cut all ties when I left home to keep Mother from finding me."

Lily had the decency to look sorry on her behalf, but Levy saw the relief when he curled his tail around the back of his chair.

"My apologies," he told her, and Levy thought he meant it. "I know how much it hurts when those we love betray us."

Levy nodded, mutely accepting his understanding as guilt constricted her throat. She dragged her spoon around her bowl, wishing she had lied. At least then she wouldn't be trying to trick him with the truth.

...

The guilt wouldn't leave her even after she and Lily had gone their separate ways for the night. _You're being ridiculous,_ Levy scolded herself as she lay in bed, staring blankly up at the crags in the ceiling. _What were you supposed to do? Reveal all your plans like a two-bit villain in the spotlight? You can't have them watching the town or they'll stop whoever Freed sends to get you out._

The new quill waiting on her bedside table drew her eyes like a magnet. It stood there quietly in its stand, the inkwell capped tight next to it. She'd sent the message before she'd crawled into bed. Freed Justine did indeed have a fair amount of rare books in his collection, as befitted Fable's royal librarian, but what she hadn't told the dragon was that he'd given her one before she left home – slipped it into her pack somehow when she wasn't looking.

 _He must have realized I was reaching my breaking point_. Levy smiled as she shook her head. _Always was annoyingly perceptive that way..._

She rolled over onto her side and pulled Freed's last gift to her out from under her pillow. The book was small enough to fit even into Levy's diminutive pockets, and bound in dark green quillin hide leather and, like the quillins themselves, was semi-telepathic. Anything she wrote in this book would show up in its twin, still safe in Freed's enchanted bookcase in the palace.

Levy ran her fingers over the bumpy hide of the cover, and then flipped through the pages. Only a third of the miniscule pages had been used, most in handwriting she didn't recognize. Freed's jumped out at her at the end. The magic in the book couldn't be repeated – namely because the quillin were now all dead as dodos – so he'd only used it twice. The first one said 'west gate at false dawn' in cheap ink and a hasty scrawl, with large drops of ink splattered on the inner corner. _Probably from his time in the Thunder Legion_ , Levy thought as she turned the page.

 _I am always here, Princess._

The finely written glyphs stood out in brightly colored ink, perfectly crafted unlike the ones before. Levy had found them when she found the book hidden away in her belongings. She'd been in a few tight spots since she'd given up being Princess Levy of Fable for Levy McGarden, wandering wizard, and had even felt tempted to call on Freed's help, but usually the very idea of palace forces arriving en masse to pull her out of the fire was enough inspiration to find another way.

 _Only this time I can't outwit dark guild criminals or solve an ancient puzzle to get myself out of here._

Which led her to the next page, the only one she'd ever used. She didn't have any fancy inks, and fortunately didn't need any for the magic to work. She could have sent her message in blood if she'd felt morbid or desperate enough, just so long as she used a magical instrument to write it.

Like her pen.

 _I almost wish Lily hadn't brought me that new one!_ She sighed explosively as she looked at her new orange quill again. _This was all a moot point without a quill to write with._

The point certainly wasn't moot now – it was made. In big bold strokes because she'd been afraid she would lose her nerve entirely if she didn't.

 _The Tempest caught me up._

Levy's eyes traced over the familiar lines of the two glyphs. It wasn't so much a code as a private joke of theirs. Her mother had a soft spot for overdone period dramas from Ca Elum. She always had to bring her handkerchiefs to dab her eyes in the second act; Levy brought hers to hide the fact she was in stitches before intermission.

They were just so hysterically _awful_. Levy and Freed would mock them in the privacy of the library, where her mother seldom came, putting on parodies of them with curtain costumes and over the top Elumese accents. But their favorite one to hate was by far _The Lady Tames the Wind_.

"Leave me to this Wind, dear brother, lest it turns a tempest that swallows Ca Elum!" the leading lady begged her warrior brother to leave her to her new fiance, the conqueror Wind (whose name was a product of a _very_ poor translation on some poor sap's part). The lady was anything but resigned to her fate however as she whacked one of her fiance's bodyguards with a serving tray and kicked the other in the groin with her five inche heel. They ended the scene by carrying her bodily off stage as she shrieked after him in semi-harmonious tones, "Let the tempest catch me up alone!"

 _Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth._ Levy had always thought so. She scowled at the blank rock wall. _Like you're one to point fingers._

She quoted the overdramatic player whenever her mother tried to drag her away to meet new suitors and she wanted Freed to make excuses for her to avoid them. Her mother probably suspected what her little code had meant, but she didn't _know_. But then, that was part of the unspoken message as well: Get me out of here, but for both our sakes, do it _quietly_.

 _I can't have a whole army showing up in Oak Town. Lily might have the patience to wait them out, but Gajeel doesn't. He'll give himself away like he did with me and then what?_

It was meant as a rhetorical question, but Levy knew exactly what would happen if her mother's forces saw a furious armored dragon bearing down on them, smoke trailing out between teeth as long as pikes.

 _Or worse_... Levy squeezed her eyes shut and latched onto anything to distract her form the blood-soaked image in her head. _Freed will tell Makarov instead of Mother. That's probably even more likely given the trust he has in the old man. He and Laxus both served in the Thunder Legion too..._

She'd weighed the risk of the wily old man getting involved before she'd sent her message, but hadn't seen a way to avoid it entirely, not without breaking her own code anyway.

 _You didn't have a choice_ , Levy tried to tell herself sternly even as she buried her face in the end of her pillow. _If Makarov finds out, well, no one alive is more cunning. Most of the courtiers have no idea what he really does. They still think he's some kind of jester._

The thought didn't make her snicker like it usually did. _And Freed won't tell Mother. He knows better. And he's smart. He'll understand to tread carefully._

Outside and down at the bottom of the keep, Gajeel snorted so loud it sounded like a train coming off its rails. Levy looked up, but didn't startle. Dragons were noisy sleepers.

 _Very,_ _ **very**_ _carefully I hope_ , she thought as she lay back down. _Otherwise..._

She couldn't stand to think of 'otherwise'. She tried squeezing her eyes shut again, but she only saw the aftermath clearer: her mother's soldiers and Makaro's wizards mourning their dead even as they celebrated conquering the last of the dragons and rescuing their missing princess.

"Stop it," Levy hissed at herself. "It won't turn out like that. Now stop borrowing trouble and go to sleep."

She rolled over back to the wall, her back to Gajeel and Lily sleeping outside her room, and forced herself to ignore the guilt gnawing inside her gut, saying she'd somehow betrayed them.


	11. I Prefer to Call it a 'Challenge'

Small announcement before a nice long chapter today! I have made an online class teaching the basics of drawing. If you would like to watch it, please check my blog and instagram for more details. Both are Bookwyrmbeth (although the blog .com after it :3)

Also, I got my manuscript back from the publishing people. It's off getting it's cover done, but it now has a title page and everything! Squee! XD

* * *

Hoarded

Eleven: I Prefer to Call It A 'Challenge'

The shrimp was acting strange. Sure, she was already the second strangest woman Gajeel had ever met, but this went beyond that. She was acting stranger than strange, bordering on downright weird.

 _Were all human women like this?_ Gajeel couldn't remember. _Maybe it's cause she's short,_ he reasoned as he listened to the girl pace around her room for the umpteenth time that hour. _She's got the same amount of crazy in her as the rest of 'em, it's just...compacted. Yeah. That must be it._

He stretched his neck, looking up where he heard the blue-haired oddball shuffling around her quarters like some kind of aimless zombie. She'd been doing that all morning. Hadn't even left her room. Occasionally he heard her rifle through the pages of some kind of book, probably trying to read he reasoned, but she never got very far before she tossed the thing down and started pacing again.

Gajeel grumbled low in his throat, his scales shifting slightly as he narrowed his eyes. _What's she doin' up there...?_

And for that matter, what had she been doing the last two days? She'd barely spoken and kept chewing at her lower lip like she was trying to pierce it over time. He'd tried teasing her she was trying to copy his style, but all he got was a semi-aware _did you say something?_

The dragon shuffled on his nest. It was just he kept seeing this lost look in her eye, like she couldn't keep herself in the present, and this was all when she bothered to come out of her little cave at all.

 _Tch, like you're one to talk_. Gajeel snorted, shifting his weight and ignoring the dust he kicked up.

He shook his head. _This ain't about me! Shorty's the one losin' it here. If something ain't done quick she's going to drive us all out of our minds. Besides, she's worryin' Lily._

"Right. That tears it. When Lil's tail's in a powder puff, none of us get to sleep. Hey Shorty!" he bellowed up the shaft. "Shorty get out here a minute, I gotta ask you somethin'!"

The shuffling stopped, and Gajeel waited long enough that a crick appeared in his neck. He frowned. "I know you can hear me!" he added when she still didn't come out.

Still nothing. Gajeel snorted, flexing his claws. It finally occurred to him what she was waiting for. "You're trying my patience Levy!"

Finally he heard her move, and a handful of seconds later, her small pale face appeared in the gloom above him. She raised a fine eyebrow, the motion nearly lost in her unruly brush of hair. "Was that so hard?" she asked.

Gajeel huffed at her and ignored the question. "Look, you want to hear me out or what?"

She thought it over, then shrugged. "If I have to..." she grumbled.

"I heard that!" Gajeel shouted up at her, getting a vaguely irritated, "Yeah, yeah," in return.

He let it slide and shuffled on his foreclaws, grinning to himself as she disappeared again to make her way down. If this didn't fix whatever the heck was wrong with her, nothing would.

Shorty appeared a few minutes later, her boots glowing again. Her shoulders were a bit slumped and she had her arms crossed defensively over her chest. "Don't you ever turn on the lights down here?" she grumbled, pushing hair out of her face as she stared into the dark.

"I don't need it," Gajeel said, which was true enough. She didn't need to know he'd gotten so used to the darkness that even meager light gave him a headache. He looked her up and down, quickly taking in her unbrushed hair and rumpled clothes. Even that headband of hers was cockeyed. "D'ya make yerself pretty just for me Shorty? I'm touched." He smirked at her.

She scowled at him, spine straightening just a little. "Is that all you wanted? Because even locked in your stupid hole I have better things to do than listen to your so called _wit_ -"

"Gihi," Gajeel chuckled. _That_ put some color back in her cheeks. "Don't get yer headband in a bunch, Shortstuff. I got a proposition for you."

The scowl blackening her face at the nickname fizzled out when she heard the rest of what he said. She eyed him silently, and Gajeel waited with that smug expression that annoyed her so much.

"What kind of proposition?" she finally asked, but she didn't roll her eyes, so it was only half a victory.

Gajeel's grin widened in anticipation. "The kind that gets you outta here if ya win."

That got her attention. He actually heard her heart start to race, his finely tuned eyes finding the flicker of her pulse in her neck.

She did a good job of keeping it off her face though. Shorty even managed to scowl at him, although that wasn't entirely play-acting. "Win? Is this some kind of a sick game to you?" she demanded, voice raising.

"I prefer to call it a _challenge_." Gajeel showed off his teeth.

"Pft," she huffed, shifting her miniscule weight to her other foot and rolling her eyes. "What? You design some kind of maze for me to run through with one hidden exit and gruesome deaths behind all the wrong turns?"

Gajeel rolled his eyes at her. "Do I look like a Minotaur to you?" He leaned down, putting his head down right in front of her, so close his breath ruffled her wild hair. "And my nest has five exits, not one."

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open a split second this time before she snapped it shut. "I was right," she whispered.

"Yeah, yeah, don't let it go to your head," he told her as he lifted his head again. "Knowing they're there won't help you find them." He gave her a minute to think this through, watching her brown eyes as they flicked back and forth. Finally she looked back up at him, suspicion etched into every line of her face.

"What's the catch?"

Gajeel raised an eyebrow at her bluntness. Of course there was a catch, but most humans would have danced around the point to try and get him to admit it first, like that somehow put them ahead. But Shorty just shoved it in his face where he either had to ignore her outright or lie through his teeth. It was one of the things he liked about her.

"You've only got tonight to look around my nest without any consequences," he told her just as bluntly. "Then this free pass ends. And all my locks stay right where they are. If you want to waste what little time you've got trying to break 'em that's your choice." He smirked at her. "I wouldn't try it."

She glared up at him, lips pursing. "And how do I know they aren't the exits?"

"You don't, gihi."

Her face soured a little more. "Well forget it then." She swept her right hand through the air between them, the other resting on her hip. "I'm not going to run around in the dark listening to you going 'gihi' all day playing _your_ idea of a game!" She stabbed a finger at him.

"Aw c'mon Shorty, where's the trust?" Then before she could actually answer his mis-thought question, Gajeel asked, "Have I lied to you yet?"

She froze, her mouth open to wring him out. She thought quickly, and then her face settled into disgruntled annoyance as she admitted, "No." She crossed her arms over her skinny body and shot him a sideways glare. "Not that I know of anyway."

Gajeel grinned crookedly at her as he hunkered down closer to her. She must be getting used to him because she only took one step back. "Exactly," he told her. "Now here's the rules: you can go anywhere in my nest that you can reach until that timer runs out." He flicked his tail, jabbing at a blank rock wall as numbers written in glowing silver popped into view. "Seven hours," he read them out loud. "That'll give you till midnight tonight." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Just don't break anything."

The pipsqueak lifted her chin. "Except locks."

His scowl broke as his eyes rolled upward. "Fine, whatever. If ya find a way out, take it and I won't come after you. But you'd better remember," he growled low, the faintest wisp of black smoke curling out his nostrils, "no one alive knows Lily n'me are down here. If I wake up one day to an army breathin' down my neck, I'll know who to blame."

The pulse beat in her neck fluttered again and she looked down at her boots before she nodded. "Fine," she whispered, for the first time failing to sound defiant. Gajeel watched her, trying to read the undercurrents of her mood, but like her sudden restlessness, he couldn't understand the reason for it.

She lifted her head and met his eyes unexpectedly, startling Gajeel, though he fought to hide it. "Anything else?" she demanded, her voice slightly hoarse.

 _Huh? Oh, right._ "Yeah." Gajeel craned his neck toward the large door off to his right, locked as tight as the others. He tried not to broadcast his excitement. "If you give up lookin' for the exit, you can try yer hand at opening that door instead. You don't and the consequences don't change, but if you do, then you can go in there any time ya like, day or night, and I won't argue." It wasn't exactly a big sacrifice. There was a back stair she could use and it wouldn't disturb him.

Shorty leaned sideways to peer around him, still bridling at the words 'give up'. "What's in it?" she asked, obviously thinking nothing was worth more than getting out of here.

Gajeel couldn't help but grin. "Every book I own."

She jerked like he'd scalded her, and Gajeel's grin grew a little wider. Obviously there was still something worth as much as sunlight and the right to roam where she wanted. "Some of them are antiques, even to me," he told her to rattle her good and proper. Gajeel slid the wizard woman a look. Her mouth had fallen open and he swore he saw stars gleaming in her eyes as she stared at the closed door.

"Well, there ya have it Shorty. What you've been after for the last forty-nine days or what you came for. Take your pick."

Shorty's mouth opened and closed, making her look like some kind of starving fledgling. "Whu-what?" she managed to gasp out.

Her words were all but lost as Gajeel boomed out, "Timer's running Shortstuff, so you'd better think fast!"

She hunkered down like prey that didn't know if it'd been seen yet, her eyes glued to the one door with longing. Gajeel could practically hear her thinking _Books only a dragon has read_ as her heart thundered in her chest.

"Tick tick tick," Gajeel clucked when she didn't move, looking at the silver numbers now counting down.

Her eyes followed his and he saw the moment she finally made up her mind.

"You spawn of a bog swilling lizard!" She swore at him as she bolted out of his nest up to her room to get her things, cursing his name, humor, and parentage the whole way.

Gajeel smiled. "There," he said to himself as he listened to her run with purpose. "Shorty just needed somethin' to do."

...

With so little time and no need for secrecy, Levy pulled out all the stops. Her boots, quill, even the threads of her headband, glowed in the lightless reaches beyond the dragon's nest. She kept her LIGHT spell behind her so it wouldn't completely blind her, but no matter how much magic she put into it, the light never reached the walls.

"This cavern must be massive," she whispered, immediately regretting it when the echoes slithered across the stone like dry-bellied snakes. "It's definitely creepy."

She could hear water somewhere ahead of her, and she pressed through the dark on cautious feet to follow it. Gajeel hadn't given her any clues, the stubborn idiot, so Levy had set out exploring as fast as she physically could. She all but ran around the edges of Gajeel's nest, inspecting the spells locking the doors, but even a glance told her how complicated the magic was.

"Even at my best I'd be lucky to break through one of those in my entire life, much less a couple hours. For an hostage-taking hoarder he sure has a way with magic." Levy sighed, hating to admit one, much less both.

She snapped her head up. "Don't let the gloom of this place get you down Levy!" she ordered herself as she resettled her backpack across her shoulders, her things jumping about inside. "This is the best chance you're going to get so don't waste it moping. Now…" She stopped in the middle of the cavern, feeling as if she was stranded underwater inside a glowing bubble. "Where's that splashing coming from?"

The large hollow space made the gurgling of running water echo about, making it difficult for Levy to pinpoint where the sound actually came from. The natural theater had amplified the sound enough she'd picked it up while she was still in Gajeel's nest, but it was getting in the way now, keeping her from finding where the stream was.

 _Water is such a powerful force!_ Levy thought as she picked her way carefully across the pitted ground. _It can break through anything with enough time and — ouch!_ She popped her finger into her mouth before shaking off the lingering sting. Levy looked and saw she'd only scraped it. _And Gajeel's been down here a long time_ , she finished her thought. _A river might be enough to get me out of here._

If the river had been here before Gajeel. If it was a river and not some dinky mountain spring. If-

A pebble went skittering out ahead of her boots when she accidentally kicked it. Levy heard it skitter briefly before it hit with a splash that sent icy droplets up across her nose. She'd found it.

Levy quickly looked down, trying to see by the soft glow of her headband, but couldn't make out anything but inky blackness until she crouched down, balancing on her toes.

"Ah!" A wide smile broke across her face. "You're much bigger than some little stream!"

The black water rolled at a furious pace in front of her, not even a foot from the toes of her boots. "Lucky I didn't fall in," Levy muttered.

Very lucky, she couldn't help thinking as she eyed the rush of water, but wasn't that her plan, more or less? To use the river to get out of the mountain she'd either have to follow it and hope she didn't run out of space to walk, or jump in…

"It definitely looks strong enough to have worn its way out of the mountain," Levy murmured as she watched the water. "But it's risky. Veeeery risky…"

Something other than a pebble kicked up drops of water. Levy straightened up, hand tightening on her quill as she scanned the water's surface. She didn't _see_ anything, but still she couldn't shake the feeling the river was somehow...watching her.

"Maybe I should have made sure Gajeel is the only thing living down here before I came down here…" Levy said as she kept her eyes on the river's surface.

Almost as if it was mocking her, the water splashed again. Ripples hastened across the black surface, arrowing toward Levy. The glare of her LIGHT spell shone white against the surface of the water, obscuring her view but Levy had thought- that is, it had almost looked like, like something was _moving_ under the water.

Something vaguely human-shaped.

 _Don't be ridiculous,_ Levy told herself, leaning up on her toes to try and see past the glare. _A person couldn't live down here. There's nothing to eat and who knows if this water is even drinkable. Besides, it's hard enough living with Gajeel when there's light. Living down here with him in the next room, you'd have to be mad. Or getting there. Or dead-_

A pale, white head popped out of the river like a cork.

Levy screamed on instinct and threw herself backwards, the sharp edges of the rocks biting into her hands and backside when she fell too hard. "Gajeel!" she shrieked.

The head vanished at her sudden noise, only a small ring of ripples left to show it had been there at all.

Levy sat there, gasping to keep up with her racing heart as her eyes flicked over the river's surface.

"You all right there, Shorty?" Gajeel's distant voice echoed down the rock walls, making Levy jump. Her heart hit the roof of her mouth, choking off her answer. "Shorty?" the dragon tried again.

Any other time and she would have teased him for sounding so concerned, but as it was...

"Th-there's something in the water!" Her voice came out as a high-pitched rasp.

She couldn't see how he could even hear her, but somehow he did. "What is it?" he asked, voice getting louder.

Levy's mouth opened and she faltered with a gasp. The words tumbled out in a rush. "I don't know but it's _staring at me_!"

The head had reappeared, sunken up to the lower lashes of its large, black eyes. Hair dark with river water floated around the white skin like oil, gleaming in the light of Levy's forgotten spell and making the face appear ghostly white by contrast.

The eyes blinked at her.

Levy stiffened, but didn't scream as she slowly realized the head wasn't a corpse dumped under the mountain. She looked again and this time saw the lines of a white neck that bled into the faint silhouette of slender shoulders under the water. Distantly she could hear Gajeel calling her name, followed by a storm of curses caught up in what sounded like a cyclone of dishware as he stormed to his feet, but Levy ignored him as she blinked back at what she now realized was a very pale, water-sodden woman.

"You're...not dead?" she asked to be sure.

The woman's dark eyes blinked again, and Levy saw a hint of amusement in them as she lifted her mouth out of the water. "Juvia hopes not. That would be terribly inconvenient."

A little breath of relieved laughter escaped Levy's mouth only to get lost in the mind-rattling clamor of Gajeel's arrival. He scraped to a stop, showering up gravel all over Levy's back. "Who's breaking into my nest now?!" he snarled over her head. Levy shot him a dark look as she shook the pebbles out of her hair as her ears rang.

The woman resurfaced from her dive to escape the rocks and scowled at the dragon, her cheeks puffed out in displeasure. She flicked a finger like someone wiping spittle off her cheek, and all the water leapt out of her hair. "Juvia thinks she preferred it when she had to spend all day waking Gajeel-kun instead," she told him, clearly put out.

Gajeel stared at the woman a stunned minute before he whirled on Levy with a scowl and a puff of smoke. "Juvia? You were screamin' over Juvia? I thought you were dyin' twerp! Sheesh..."

He raised his head and Levy tilted her head up to follow him. "Who's Juvia?" she finally asked.

The woman threw up her arms – suddenly clad in dark blue sleeves embellished in white designs that trailed off down the arms – spraying cold water onto them as she cried, "Juvia is Juvia!" She beamed at Levy. "And she is very glad to see Gajeel's friend is feeling better. Juvia was quite worried when she last left."

Oh, Levy didn't know where to start with that one. Vague memories of chilled hands tending her while she'd been half lucid came back to her. Lily had said it was an old friend of theirs when she'd asked. Obviously that had been Juvia. Just as obviously Gajeel hadn't told her why Levy was really here.

Irritation won out and Levy turned on the dragon with a sharp-edged smile of her own. He was studying the far wall intently. " _Friend_ , huh?"

Gajeel snorted, and Levy didn't think all the moisture collecting on his neck had come from Juvia's enthusiasm.

A splash distracted her, and Levy turned in time to see Juvia rise up out of the river on a wave of black water. She didn't see the woman's feet until they touched against the rocky surface, and Levy realized with a start that it was because Juvia hadn't _had_ feet until that moment because _her entire body was made of water_.

"You're a fairy!" Levy cried without meaning to.

Juvia froze where she'd been removing the excess water from her clothes. She had made herself a dark blue dress from the water, with a slit so high it showed the white of one thigh. Fur lined the high collar and the tight cuffs of her long sleeves, and white designs decorated the capelet draped over her shoulders, matching the ones trailing down her arms. Heeled boots rose beyond her knees, framing the dark blue mark tattooed on her leg. Levy couldn't make out what it was in this light.

The water fairy looked at Gajeel, then Levy. Water still floated in the air next to her, held there by a forgotten finger.

"Gajeel's friend...did not know?" she asked in a high voice, obviously wondering just how good a friend Levy was.

Levy stared at her, not sure what to say. Fairies might look like them, but they were as human as dragons were. Maybe even less considering the vindictive streak they had that led to them cursing babies because the parents hadn't invited them to the christening or gave them silver plates instead of gold or amethysts instead of rubies. And they had powerful, wild magic. The most your average human could do against it was find a convenient loophole in the curse. If Juvia took offense at Levy knowing what she was...

Gajeel's snort broke the tension between the two women. "Relax Juves. Shorty's all right. 'Sides-" His eyes met Levy's briefly before he looked at Juvia again, "-I'm the one she's mad at."

The water fairy relaxed enough to smile. "Oh," she murmured. With a twirl of her finger, the water still gurgling in the air turned into a hat – fur-trimmed and dark blue to match her dress with a little butterfly pinned off-center – and she set it over her flowing blue hair. "Juvia is glad to hear this."

Her face flushed sky blue as she realized how that sounded. "No! Juvia did not mean that!" Both hands hid her mouth and her eyes grew into near perfect circles. "She only meant how glad Gajeel has found a trustworthy friend so that Juvia need not worry and- oh!" She tried to disappear into her hat.

Gajeel flicked her with a claw, but Juvia only swayed on her feet. "Yer babbling, woman. Get a hold of yourself before you make a bad impression."

Juvia whined into the fur of her collar. "What must Shorty think of Juvia?"

Levy's expression turned flat as Gajeel snickered behind her. She shot him a look and he coughed smoke into his claw.

She got back to her feet and dusted herself off before walking up to Juvia with her hand outstretched. "Shorty thinks her name is Levy, and Juvia should ignore Gajeel, namely because he's a big dummy."

The fairy peeped out from beneath the fur of her hat, looking at Levy's smile and then her offered hand. "Juvia has heard of this from her beloved. It is how humans greet each other, yes?"

Levy nodded, trying not to let her smile falter as Juvia bent to inspect her hand. "Juvia has never had an opportunity to greet a human this way. She only knows her beloved, and now Levy." Her shoulders rippled in a shrug. "And Gajeel-kun too, of course."

Levy's smile twitched nervously and she felt Gajeel stiffen behind her, probably indignant at being lumped in with nosy humans. "That's um, you don't leave your river much, do you?"

Juvia blinked her deep water eyes, face perfectly open. "No. How did Levy know?"

"Oh, just a guess really." Her hand was getting tired, but she didn't dare withdraw it. Not even from a friendly fairy.

Juvia stared at the hand another minute, frowning in concentration before she abruptly straightened up and smacked Levy's fingers with her own and a little, "Hya!"

The fairy watched her expectantly, a hopeful smile on her face. It took Levy a moment to realize she was waiting for Levy to speak. It took her another minute to think of anything beyond 'what was that?'.

"How...enthusiastic," she finally told Juvia.

Her white face fell. "Did Juvia not do it right?"

Levy felt Gajeel open his mouth to make some sarcastic comment. "It was fine!" she put in first. "That was just...the informal version. You- I mean, humans really only use it with people they already know well."

Juvia looked at her own hand as if she'd never thought it capable of so many nuances before. "How intricate," she murmured as she put it down. "Our way is much simpler," she said as she reached down into the river and pulled out a bright pink umbrella with a long handle.

"And what way is that?" Levy asked, all the fairy stories Makarov had told her and the other palace children rushing back to her. She'd always wanted a fairy godmother to appear and whisk her away, and she'd cried the day she realized that wasn't going to happen.

The fairy popped her umbrella open and Levy saw little hearts stitched around its lacy rim. "With wings outstretched, of course. It is very rude to greet a fairy without your wings outstretched." Her eyes wandered over Levy's plain clothes and human features. "Although some allowances must be made, of course."

"How kind of you." Levy tried not to feel offended, but it did grate at her. "What do you do if another fairy doesn't, um, outstretch their wings to greet you?" she asked, not quite sure what Juvia was really talking about or what it would mean to a fairy. It sounded rather ceremonial to her.

Juvia spun her umbrella between her fingers before leaning it against her shoulder. In the shade of the pink canopy, her face turned nearly invisible except for the eyes. There was a light shining out of the fairy's eyes like the lure of a black water fish, inhuman and cold.

"Then there must be gifts," Juvia told her, still twirling her umbrella pole. "Juvia has found iron to be most appropriate." She peeked out from under her umbrella and smiled girlishly up at Gajeel.

Levy shivered in the dark. Iron burned fairies like too much sun burned human skin. It was why infants were given tiny iron crosses at their baptisms, to ensure they weren't actually changelings.

It took every fiber of self control Levy had not to rub the goosebumps off her arms. "A-ah..." she mumbled, too afraid to say anything else.

Juvia didn't notice her sudden silence, and looped her arm with Levy's, a smile on her face. Thankfully the lure-light had gone from her eyes. "Juvia has been Gajeel-kun's friend for a long time. She is glad he has settled down with a girl as kind as Levy."

"Se-se- _what_?"

Levy jerked to a stop so suddenly it ripped her arm out of Juvia's hold. The water woman half turned, tilting her head curiously at the look on Levy's face before looking up at Gajeel. The dragon was so stunned his whole mouth had dropped open and all his teeth were showing.

"Levy is...not Gajeel-kun's girl?" Juvia ventured a guess.

"No!" They both remembered how to speak. Levy and Gajeel shared a brief, mortified look before they turned away. "He's a dragon!" Levy yelled as Gajeel demanded, "What kinda sicko you take me for?!"

Levy was more surprised at his words then Juvia. She snuck a glance up at him, but he was glaring at the distant wall. He'd hardly acknowledged he was in fact keeping her prisoner out loud since she'd arrived, even though they both knew it. Seeing how angry he was at the suggestion that he'd taken advantage of his hostage...relieved Levy somewhat.

Despite what the dragon had said earlier, her freedom was not a game to him.

"Then..." Juvia murmured, missing all the undertones flying between the other two, "what is Levy doing in Gajeel's nest?"

Levy ignored the lingering blush on her face and met Gajeel's eyes, raising an eyebrow daring him to explain. He looked way.

"He and I are just settling a _friendly_ wager," Levy said with a wicked grin.

The dragon snorted. "Would you let that go?" he grumbled.

"Would you?"

The look on his face clearly said no.

Juvia looked back and forth between them, growing more confused by the second. "What kind of wager? Perhaps Juvia can settle it."

Levy's eyes lit up. "Now there's an idea."

"Shrimp..." Gajeel rumbled in warning.

"Crab," Levy shot back, sidling closer to Juvia.

The fairy watched them in complete confusion. "Oysters?" she tried.

Levy laughed and that set the fairy at ease. "Gajeel bet me that I couldn't find even one of the exits from his keep before midnight tonight. You couldn't give me a hint or two, could you Juvia?"

"Oi!" Gajeel snapped. "That's cheating!"

"It's not like I asked her where one is! It's just a _hint_."

Juvia had that caught-in-the-middle anxiety about her again. "Juvia of course would like to help..." Her eyes flicked nervously between them as she fiddled with the belt around her waist. "But Juvia only knows of one way in."

Levy's eyes practically glowed with renewed hope-

-only to have it burn out when Juvia pointed back at the river running silently behind them.

"This is the source of Juvia's river, or very close to it. She comes at times to visit Gajeel and Panther Lily."

"Besides," Gajeel put in, "even _you_ wouldn't fit through all those narrow, jagged twists and turns, so it don't count."

Levy fought back the hopelessness simmering beneath her irritation. She hoped Gajeel didn't see the tears sitting in the corners of her eyes when she frowned up at him. "That had better not be one of your five," she snapped at him.

The dragon lifted his long head, somehow insulted, though Levy didn't care why. " _No_ ," he muttered, "there are still five _land_ -accessible exits that you don't have a hope at finding." He shot her that insufferable smirk of his at her. "But if you really want to look you'd better get going. The clock's still tickin' after all."

Her breath caught in her throat as her heart went tumbling around her ribcage like a bouncy ball. "You didn't pause it?!"

"Of course not." That smirk grew. "That'd be cheating."

Levy fumed at him, hands clenched into fists. "Well how much time is left?" she squeaked.

The dragon looked up, somehow tracking the movements of his infernal countdown. "Four hours, thirty-two minutes, and twelve seconds- no, nine, eight, seven-"

"I get it!" Levy shrieked. She was already running back toward the main cavern where Gajeel slept. The river cut across the whole length of the cavern before disappearing straight under the rock. She wouldn't find a way out here.

She remembered to raise her hand and wave when she reached the firelight. "It was nice to meet you Juvia! I hope to see you later!"

Despite the fact there was no longer any light in the cave, Levy still saw the water fairy raise one hand in return. "Good luck Levy!"

As she ran, Levy could only hope there was some fairy magic in that wish, because she was going to need all the luck she could possibly lay hands on to beat that clock.


	12. The Problem with Audiences

So much for posting a week later like I planned. Rolls eyes at self. Lots of stuff been happening is all I can say, such as new dog, new art classes on Skillshare I'm teaching, and (best of all) NEW COVER for my NEW BOOK! :D I need to put it up on my blog where you all can admire it, but that part's very exciting.

And another yay! I'm so glad you guys liked Juvia. I thought the whole 'Juvia third person' thing would be a total pain to write, but she was actually a lot of fun. She actually might be one of my favorites so far. :)

* * *

Hoarded

Twelve: The Problem with Audiences is that They Notice Things

"It isn't like you to drop by for frivolities Juvia. What're you doin' here?"

Juvia didn't look up at her friend as she blew the steam off her tea. The leaves were a gift from the elderly couple that lived along one the banks of her river (in exchange for stopping the river flooding or some such impossibility, but Juvia only lived in it after all and how was she supposed to stop it when it had the mind to run wild? Then again, it really was excellent tea, so perhaps encouraging the water to flood the fields next door instead of their house wasn't wasted) and it was a simple matter of willing the water to boil so the leaves would steep. The cup – her favorite shade of blue with froths of sea foam curling after itself around the rim and down the handle – was Gajeel's, one of the few he hadn't cracked beyond all use. He had many little trinkets like this, lost and usually stolen objects, in his hoard, and he was more than willing to let her borrow one or two, when he was feeling generous.

Or when he wanted something, like the truth.

Juvia wasn't inclined to give it to him yet, so she sipped at her tea – As wonderful as she remembered! – and returned, "It isn't like Gajeel-kun to entertain guests. What is Levy doing here?"

His attention immediately swung to the hunched over lump where the mortal wizard had planted herself about an hour and a half ago. She'd stormed in out of the dark, soot-faced from some clash of magic Juvia had missed, with an expression on her face that reminded Juvia of hot embers hissing under a sudden rain.

"Not. A _word_ ," she'd ground out as she passed the dragon without looking up at him before setting up camp before one of his continually closed doors.

Juvia looked up, trying to read the metal plates on Gajeel's face, but as usual, his emotions eluded her.

She knew how to press his buttons though. "Part of your wager?" she asked sweetly.

Gajeel had only grunted at her, and then surprisingly enough actually listened to Levy, and shut his trap.

Juvia marked that as interesting, and decided she hadn't made a mistake after all when she'd assumed Gajeel did not keep the mortal around for her company.

She lowered her cup to her lap as Gajeel snorted, trying to sound put out. "Shorty just barged in here about a month ago. Hasn't left since."

Juvia eyed him. That was not the truth. Oh, he'd coached it very nicely – twisting it around so it was not a lie either, but that was not what had happened. Fairies all but lived on hidden truths and half-stories and Juvia, while not _so_ old, was not some wisp fresh from her water-lily cradle. She knew the truth when she heard it. What she did not know was why her friend tried to hide anything from her. She had thought they were past the days of mistrusting each other, but Juvia knew if she said that, Gajeel would only clam up faster. No, best to take the long way round.

"And how have you been sleeping Gajeel-kun?" Always a safe topic to start with. Gajeel hadn't actually _done_ anything in decades.

"I don't," he grumbled, eyeing Levy again.

Juvia paused over her tea. That was not the normal answer. She tried to go forward with the rote script. "And Panther Lily?"

"Tail's in a knot twenty-four seven."

The fairy hid a smile behind her cup. _How comforting it is that some things will not change,_ she thought.

"What have I said about trying to praise people, iron head?" a familiar voice came from over Juvia's head. She looked up just as the Exceed came swooping down in tight circles, his white wings blinding in the usual gloom. "Not everyone understands when you're trying to be _nice_. Hello Juvia."

Juvia beamed at Lily as he touched down next to her and Gajeel. "Panther Lily," she greeted him warmly. "It's been too long. Juvia has missed you."

The cat crooked a grin at her, settling his arms over his bare chest. "You do know how to liven things up around here. Although our house guest will certainly give your salmon a run. Have you met Levy yet?"

Juvia nodded, fingering her hair back behind her ear when it tumbled forward over her shoulder. "Yes, little Levy was at the river when Juvia arrived. She is quite sweet for a mortal."

"High praise coming from you," Lily murmured, and then cocked his head to the side to match the confusion mirrored in his ears. "Levy was at the river? She doesn't come down this far."

Juvia did not miss the tinkling of metal scales stiffening next to her. She wondered what Gajeel would say, but across the cavernous space, Levy straightened up from her hunch, stretching her thin arms high over her head with a groan that of course Lily heard. He turned to see her there and one ear twisted back near his skull. By the time the Exceed faced Gajeel again, both ears were thrown back. His anger was easier for Juvia to recognize with his animal-esque features, but she still found Lily's motives as clouded as Gajeel's.

"You said you wouldn't taunt her, Gajeel," Lily said low, a growl building in his chest.

"Shorty needed somethin' to do, Lil," Gajeel bit back, matching his force. He lowered his large, reptilian head, dwarfing Panther Lily's diminutive height, but Lily was too used to him to feel intimidated. "Sides, it's not like I lied. If she managed to find the back exit, I woulda let her go."

Lily's fur bristled along his spine. Juvia saw his tail had expanded to twice it's normal size. "You got her hopes up to assuage your own guilt!" he hissed, white muzzle pulling back from his teeth. "You know as well as I do it would take an honest miracle for her to find any of those passages through the mountain."

"Relax Lil, it's not like I rigged it-"

"You didn't have to!" Lily's composure cracked and his shout rang up the central shaft. Across the room, even Levy sat up to see what had happened.

Juvia watched as Lily composed himself, feeling like she only understood every other word. His shoulders were still quaking as his wings glowed into existence on his back. "Excuse me, Juvia," he muttered with his usual court manners before springing back into the air. She watched as he drifted almost lazily (a complete illusion, Juvia knew) to Levy and sat with his back to hers, arms crossed as he glowered at Gajeel, looking for all the world like he was protecting her from his partner.

Gajeel rolled his eyes, smoke billowing out between his front fangs. _Interesting_ , Juvia thought again as Gajeel grumbled something about high strung furballs. Why would Lily feel that the little mortal woman needed his protection? Unless...could he harbor some deeper feeling for the woman, and that was why Gajeel had been so adamant Levy wasn't his girl?

 _But then why shield her from Gajeel-kun? Such over protectiveness is more befitting of a dragon anyway. Juvia thinks she is letting her romantic side flit away with her again..._ Much as she loved the beautiful tragedy of fleeting mortal romance, she felt relieved. _The age difference..._ she thought dubiously as she watched the pair in front of the locked door. No, Lily must have another reason why he sat there scowling at Gajeel.

"Lily is unhappy with Gajeel-kun," Juvia observed out loud.

"Wow, yer mortal studies really are paying off, aren't they?"

Juvia recognized his sarcasm and chose to ignore it. "Yes, Juvia thinks so too, but _why_ is Lily so upset?" she asked point blank, and instantly regretted it.

As she thought, Gajeel grumbled a harsh, "Forget it," and refused to say anything else.

The fairy pouted, berating herself for such a rookie move, and swept a hand over her tea. Fresh steam curled off the surface to linger in the air.

They stewed in silence a moment, Juvia's temper matching the scalding tea sliding down her throat, before Gajeel grumbled, "You gonna tell me why yer here or are we just gonna sit here all day?"

Juvia turned her head away. "Juvia forgot," she announced.

"Forg- Don't play yer fairy games with me Juves. I'm not in the mood!" A small growl followed the words up his throat.

Fairies were not so easily intimidated by such blunt things as teeth. Juvia lifted her nose a little higher in the air.

The growl turned frustrated. "Fine! Whaddya want rain woman? The cup? Take it! Just tell me what you heard."

One pale white finger trailed down the decorated handle of the cup. Juvia was tempted...

She shook her head, as much to clear it as to answer Gajeel. "Juvia wants the truth," she insisted as she settled her sprays of blue-water hair back into place.

"Why? Why's that matter so much when it's got nuthin' to do with you?"

"Because Gajeel-kun is Juvia's friend, and the last time he kept secrets from her, she found him all but dead in her river!"

The tiny, delicate sound of ceramic snapping reached their ears. Juvia looked down and was surprised to see the handle of her favorite cup broken off in one hand. She blinked at it, suddenly glad she had not accepted it like part of her had wanted to.

Gajeel must have seen it too, but he didn't mention it. The tally-keeper in the back of Juvia's mind marked down this odd behavior with the rest.

"This ain't like then, Juvia. Shorty's just here so she doesn't blab, is all," Gajeel told her in a lower voice. He was not calm however, and Juvia was quite all right with this. She did not feel calm herself. In fact her heart was pounding hard and a line kept trying to carve itself between the smooth skin of her eyes. She felt angry, she recognized, but there was something else, something pale and tremulous, lying underneath it that she had forgotten about.

Juvia pressed a hand to her heart and that seemed to slow its rapid pace. The pale feeling lingered, but she did not let it out in her voice.

"It may well be," she told Gajeel quietly so not even Lily could hear them. "Juvia has heard rumors, Gajeel-kun, that dragon slayers have returned to Ishgal."

The words hung there, weight-like, between them. Juvia watched the dragon without blinking as they settled gradually into the dust under their feet. His eyes were very wide, his pupils very small. No part of him moved.

"What?" The little sound escaped between the chinks in his armor.

Juvia nodded, regaining her own mobility as she flicked a speck off her dress. "She has heard it from several sources, of a boy with pink hair that can breathe fire as the dragons did. They call him Salamander, and they think he is only a powerful wizard."

"Natsu," Gajeel mumbled, a light coming into his red eyes Lily had always called 'ornery'.

"There are tales of others, but they are far less plentiful then Salamander's. It appears he is...quite destructive, if not exceedingly conscientious of human life."

"Yeah, well, he always _did_ enjoy the attention. Self-righteous lil twit..." Gajeel grumbled. But Juvia saw how fast his eyes moved as he followed the thoughts in his head.

"Then you know him, Gajeel-kun?"

He nodded. "He was Igneel's brat."

Juvia frowned, dredged up her memory of the name. "The Fire Dragon King?"

Gajeel nodded again.

"But-" Juvia did not understand. "How is he here, now? Juvia thought the dragon slayers perished with the dragons."

"More like their magic faded out of existence when there weren't any more dragons. Using dragon slaying magic against anything but a dragon is overkill." That certainly explained the Salamander's notoriety. "And it can only be taught by a real dragon. Without them or a real reason to use it, the lucky ones had their magic just...die out."

Gajeel stared into the dark of his nest, and Juvia wondered if he was remembering the Time Before – when the dragons of Ishagal had lived peacefully with the humans, when the very idea of dragon slayers had not existed. The humans might have forgotten, but not Gajeel. And not Juvia.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember with him: the unobstructed sunlight on her skin, the frenetic joy of the revels led by Queen Mavis, the Eternal, under the golden moon. The sound of her river, as young as she was, as it learned its winds and wends, which fields it burbled past, which forests it watered.

Which towns it could reach in time to douse the dragon fire burning them, which paths to avoid to keep from strengthening the enemy, which white waters were close enough to silence sneaking scouts-

Juvia opened her eyes with a start as the memory flooded the darker recesses of her mind. The edges of her water body ripped, disturbed, and she forcibly stilled them. She looked up to see if Gajeel had noticed her slip only to see black smoke beginning to curl out of his nostrils as his lips pulled back from his teeth.

Perhaps Juvia had been wrong. Perhaps Gajeel-kun didn't remember the Time Before at all. Just the war, and the Betrayal.

Juvia focused on her hands, still holding the broken cup, and the sorrow that came when she thought of kind Queen Mavis living in hiding, paying for what the Spriggans had done to the humans, overtook her. Fairies could no longer walk safely in daylight for fear of the humans and their iron contraptions, and the moon no longer rose in gold to oversee their nocturnal revels. Like Gajeel, they were still paying the price for an atrocity they had not committed. Juvia wondered briefly if that was not the defining touch of evil.

The fairy shivered, and shook herself. "Does Gajeel-kun think that this Natsu Salamander has lived in hiding these four hundred years like him?" she asked.

Gajeel surfaced from his memories with a snort. "Like he could stay quiet that long," he grumbled. "Naw, this stinks of magic. I just can't tell what kind."

Juvia touched a finger to her chin as she thought. "Does it matter?"

The dragon inhaled deep, the red of his inner furnace glowing between his scales, then exhaled it all in a whoosh that warmed Juvia through. "Probably not. The punk's already here, and the others with him I bet. We should probably find out where they are." But he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it.

A smile quirked at Juvia's lips – _So solitary_ – just as the light in the room changed. She looked up, trying to find the source of the orange-tinted glow, and found it came from the numbers ticking down on the wall behind her.

 **4:58**

Across the room, Levy must have noticed too, because she let out a shriek in six different languages and wrote faster.

Juvia felt her face turn vivid pink at the mortal's language. "Goodness."

"Gihi," Gajeel chucked above her. "Yer time's runnin' out Shorty~"

"I _know_. I got eyes!" she shot back without slowing down. If anything her quill moved faster. Did mortals make gale force writing quills, Juvia wondered. To match the glasses?

"What does this have to do with Levy and Gajeel-kun's wager anyway?" she asked.

Lily barked a dark laugh across the room. "Absolutely nothing," he called out, but Levy was too engrossed in her work to hear and Gajeel ignored him. Juvia decided to follow suit and sipped at her tea, purposefully thinking of how she might fix her favorite cup, while Gajeel watched Levy work with a wide smile on his face.

 **3:30**

"You asleep over there? I didn't realize it was so far past little twerp's bedtime."

"Shut up! I'm almost finished!"

Gajeel chuckled again. "Sure ya are." But Juvia saw the gleam of anticipation in his nearest eye as he watched Levy.

Behind them, the numbers continued to descend. When they reached one minute, Gajeel's smile faltered. "Shorty-"

"I said I'm almost there!" But even Juvia heard the ragged desperation in Levy's voice this time. She glanced behind her-

 **0:54**

 **0:53**

"Juvia supposes 'almost' is not close enough," the fairy murmured as she turned back around. Next to her, Gajeel grumbled uneasily.

 **0:30**

"You want those books or not?" Gajeel challenged the little mortal again. There were so many glyphs poised in the air over Levy's head, waiting to be enacted, that her magic was a golden haze in Juvia's eyes.

"Al...most...there," she said again.

"Levy did not hear Gajeel-kun," Juvia observed.

 **0:17**

 **0:16**

"Fifteen seconds, Lev."

Levy was so drawn into her work she only made a little cry as she erased part of a glyph and rewrote it. Gajeel's words didn't even reach her.

Juvia felt the draining sensation in her stomach she had learned was disappointment. "Levy's spell is not complete. She will not cast it in time."

 **0:10**

 **...0:09**

 **...0:08**

Juvia found herself staring at the clock, anticipating a seven that seemed to be refusing to show itself. When it finally did, the six took even longer to follow.

 **0:05-**

The clock all but stopped. _What is going on?_ Juvia frowned. The clock continued to run, but it was so far from accurate time it was useless.

"Gajeel-kun-" Juvia looked up to tell the dragon the wager was forfeit, that his clock was broken, and saw such a look of concentration on his face she stopped. At first she thought he was watching Levy, anticipating her failure as Juvia had. But then she realized.

 **0:04**

Gajeel had slowed the clock on purpose.

No one else had noticed. Not even Lily, anxiously watching Levy work but wisely offering no hints. Not only would that negate her victory, but Juvia thought Levy was the sort of mortal who yelled at you for helping, rather than feeling properly grateful.

And that was the true purpose of this, Juvia realized with widening eyes. _Gajeel-kun wants Levy to win._

It was something of an old fairy trick, and she berated herself for not seeing it sooner. It was a well known fact among them that Heroes did not truly appreciate anything unless they had to battle several hoards and lose an eye or a leg first to get it. So instead of just _giving_ them the object of their quest – the magical sword able to wipe out one hundred enemies in one swing, the water that could cure any poison, the answer to life, the universe, and everything else – the fairies would hide it and require the Heroes pass their tests to retrieve it.

Naturally they left the skeletons of the stupider test-takers (these were not supposed to be easy tests after all) but there were also times the fairies rigged their own rules in favor of a Hero they found worthy of their help.

Juvia hid her sudden smile in her cooling tea. _Gajeel-kun is quite soft beneath his armor plating._

 **0:03**

"Ah!" Levy cried in front of the door. "I've got it!"

Juvia looked up in time to see the little wizard sit up on her knees, arms flung out on either side as she cast her spell. Golden light sprayed everywhere, like sunlight pouring through a window on a Sunday afternoon, making Gajeel's gloomy nest glow. The door seemed to soak in the light, and as she watched, Juvia saw the lines and curves of Levy's many glyphs fitting into a mesh the fairy had never seen before covering the door as a second skin.

It was beautiful, and Juvia watched, entranced, as Levy's many glyphs fit into Gajeel's many locks.

 **0:02**

There was a flash of light sharp as a solar flare-

 **0:01**

-and the door cracked open.

 **0:00**

Levy was on her feet in an instant. " _Woo-ooh_!" she cried, her victory call filling the nest as she danced around, grabbing Lily under his arms and swinging him around with her, a startled look on his face at her boldness. "I did it! I beat that stupid clock. Your library is mine, dragon!" she gloated, beaming at him as she continued to celebrate.

Gajeel rolled his eyes at her, but Juvia saw the relief as his scales settled against his back and he curled his tail around his side. "Careful Shorty. If you get too full of yourself you'll bloat."

Levy stuck her tongue out at him over Lily's head where she hugged him tight.

Juvia slid the dragon a sly, sideways look. "Gajeel-kun has such a way with women," she murmured.

"Tch," he snorted. "Says the stalker."

She was in too good a mood to take offense as she stood, clapping lightly to congratulate Levy on her hard fought victory. Gajeel stayed where he was, smug, and occasionally called out amusing insults at them. Juvia always laughed, but Levy rose to the bait once or twice, although even then she felt too elated to stay mad for long.

But Lily...

Juvia blinked, taken aback by the cold look in Panther Lily's eyes. She hadn't seen him look at anyone like that since she'd known him as a royal captain of Edolas, and it was enough to make her glad he was looking at Gajeel and not her.


	13. Never Cross A Black Cat

Well. Today was weird. Very weird and Panther Lily makes it better. Face it. Panther Lily makes EVERYTHING better. Except possibly pet fur allergies, but you suffer for what you love, right? ;P

Thank you General Zargon, Twiddal, and Mrs. MagnusB for your wonderful reviews! They were like little pieces of chocolate in my inbox. Mm...chocolate... Dear world, please send more! :D

But seriously lovely readers, I hope you enjoy this chapter too.

* * *

Thirteen: Never Cross a Black Cat

Lily waited until Levy had fallen asleep in the so-called _library_ before he confronted Gajeel. The dragon was curled up in a c-shape on his bed, snout resting in the hollow of his powerful forearms, but Lily knew he wasn't asleep. The end of his tail kept swaying up and down, albeit slowly.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily demanded without preamble.

Gajeel slit one eye open, the red of his irises an ember glowing in the dark. "Sleepin'," he mumbled, the word muffled by his arms and somewhat slurred. "Go 'way."

He closed his eye only to snap both open when Lily drove his Musica Sword into the rock a hair from Gajeel's nose. Lily stood next to the ebony blade, fur bristling, as his partner realized he meant business.

Gajeel sat up, his widened eyes shrinking to their usual size. "All right cat," he rumbled, "you've got my attention."

Panther Lily's tail lashed from side to side as his eyes narrowed. "Answer the question, Gajeel."

The dragon snorted, and the air ruffled Lily's fur. "I did. It's not my fault you didn't like the answer cat-"

"What are you doing to Levy?!"

Gajeel pulled back from the snarling Exceed. He'd showed his teeth and everything. Gajeel tried to remember the last time he'd seen Lily this furious, and couldn't.

"What's got yer tail in a knot?" he asked, not sure what was going on anymore as his mind finally registered Lily's question. "And what kinda question is that anyway? I ain't doin' anything to her. If anything she's doin' stuff to me!"

"To you?" Lily balked. "What'd she do? Write on your face while you were asleep?"

The dragon stared at him. " _No_ ," he drawled. "But she's always in my way, nagging that I'm in hers, and she keeps pestering me about the books! Where are they from? When are they from? Is this an original ink stain by Kabi Melon? Tch, like I know-"

He probably would have gone on if Lily hadn't shouted, "You told her to!"

Gajeel snorted smoke. "I did not. I let her in that library in the first place so she would stop bugging me for stuff, not keep at it."

"Library?" Panther Lily scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Gajeel, you have one bookcase and it's got more gaps in it than your education. If the books you _do_ have weren't so old, Levy would be bored with you by now."

Gajeel swung his head away, but not fast enough to hide the fact he'd physically flinched at Lily's words.

The Exceed fumed. "There!" he cried, throwing a paw out, his claws barely hidden by his finger pads. "What was that?!"

"What was what? Lil, you're not makin' any sense!"

Lily took a half step forward, not put off. He knew what he saw, now and earlier during their little 'competition'. "That look just now. You don't want to bore Levy, you want her to like you! All this-" He jabbed a paw at the candlelight still seeping from the cracked open door to Gajeel's _library_ "-was your backwards way of giving her a present so she'll want to stay. It's perverse! I won't stand for it!" He clenched his paws, nails digging into his palms, and resisted the urge to stomp his foot.

Gajeel started at him, mouth slightly open. "Have you lost yer fuzzy lil mind?" he shouted, only to freeze as a small, sleepy sound slipped out of the large doors. They both waited to see if they had woken her up with their arguing, only now remembering Levy's presence. But she only moaned in her sleep and rolled over, onto some parchment if the sudden crinkling was anything to go by.

"You must've lost your mind," Gajeel hissed when all was quiet again, leaning down close to Lily to be heard. "Because I can't think of another reason why you would think I gotta thing for that pipsqueak of a woman! You're insane, you'n Juvia both!"

So the fairy saw it too, Lily thought. This...this adolescent pig-tail pulling and teasing that most children got out of their systems in the school yard. His stomach clenched.

"Have you forgotten you're holding her hostage?" Lily demanded in a low voice. "That you've forbidden her from going home or seeing her family again? Gajeel you are her warden, not her suitor."

The dragon reared back. "I just said-!"

"I don't care what you _said_ , it's what you _did_." Lily cut him off. "And you might as well have made her dinner and asked her to stay forever. Don't!" He stopped whatever protest Gajeel would have given him. "You forget how well I know you."

"Well, it's not as well as you thought, because you're _wrong_."

Lily crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes, ears slanted back at an annoyed angle. He was lying to himself then. There was no other explanation Lily would believe.

But telling Gajeel that would get them nowhere, and worse, it might plant ideas in that thick head of his. "I had better be," Lily said instead. "Because so help me Gajeel, if this continues I'll take her back to Oak Town myself."

A faint look of betrayal gathered in those red eyes. "Who's side are you on Lily?" He tried to sound sarcastic and failed.

"In this, I'm on hers." Lily was adamant. "I won't have you taking advantage of the girl just because you're confusing her inability to leave with a genuine desire to stay. While I'm gone, no more gifts, no more gestures. Don't even speak to her!"

"Enough!" Gajeel finally snapped, the start of a roar coming at the end. "Just stop it Lil. You complain when I ignored her, and now you're complaining when I try and make peace with the shrimp. There's _nothing there_. Levy's just...Levy."

And now he was using her name. Great.

"I won't go," Lily decided rashly as he started to pace around his sword, still standing upright in the ground. "How can I? I can't leave you two alone down here or-"

"Or what?" You'll come back and find us necking in the dark? C'mon Lil." He gestured to his iron-armored hide with his long tail. "And you have to go. Juvia's great at collecting the mortal babble but she believes every fish story she hears. If she's right though, and there are dragon slayers wandering around again, we need to know who they are, where they are, and where they came from. I can't do it so that leaves you."

"I know!" Lily snapped, stopping where he stood. He stared at the rock beneath his small boots, flexing his fingers. He sighed. "I know," he said again, resigned. "But I don't like this Gajeel. None of it."

The dragon rolled his eyes. "I noticed."

Panther Lily scowled at him from the corner of his eye, his mouth pulling down into a sharp, unhappy vee, which Gajeel ignored. Lily glanced over at the door as the candlelight inside flickered in a stray wind, making the shadows leap about like imps. He'd left Levy in there some time ago, passed out on a moth-eaten cushion with her arms splayed over a score of open tomes, like she was afraid they would fly off while she slept if she didn't hold them down. She was a kind girl, a good girl, and a rather excellent wizard in his opinion. Lily could admit to himself he had a soft spot for Levy, one that didn't exactly align with his loyalties to Gajeel. It had been hard enough to leave sunlight behind when they disappeared into hiding, even though Lily chose to do it, so he understood Levy's aching to get out. He kept finding himself thinking of little ways to help her, to make her smile down here, and it was putting Lily more and more at odds with himself. It was quietly tearing him in two.

Lily looked up at Gajeel, his eyes also drawn to the hidden wizard. "I'll leave in the morning," the cat murmured. "And things here _will_ be better when I get back."

As he returned to his room for a few short hours of sleep, Panther Lily wasn't sure if that was an order or sheer wishful thinking.

...

Like all of his room's Gajeel's library was meant to accommodate dragons, and Levy's half dozen guttering candles didn't have a hope of illuminating the entire space.

That was fine, Levy thought with her back pressed to the scrolled metal work of the door and her knees pulled up to her chest, she preferred the dark right now. She deserved it.

In the central room beyond, she heard Gajeel yawn and shuffle around on his nest-bed, his metal scales scraping over the hard rock with a sound like an axe against the grinding stone. She let her head fall back against the door, confident he wouldn't hear the small thunk in all the noise he was making.

 _Gajeel...was trying to give me a present? Was that what this was all about?_

Caterpillars with many feet crawled up her legs only to turn into a storm of butterflies in her stomach, beating their wings until she felt sick. Levy fought off the feeling, only to realize the tickling feeling running down her face belonged to tears dripping toward her chin. And they weren't the good kind either.

She let them fall, covering her mouth with her hands. Levy tasted ink, but even that familiarity didn't comfort her now. _This is all so...twisted up._

Today had been the first real good day she'd had since she'd gotten here, and it wasn't just because of the library (although that was beyond fantastic). It was drinking tea with Juvia, and getting to use her magic for its original purpose – cracking codes, solving puzzles, not as an escape tool or for writing desperate pleas for help.

And she had finally met the Gajeel that Juvia and Lily knew, the one that had earned their lifelong loyalty, who was their friend.

The knife in her gut twisted and Levy curled tighter in on herself, biting her lip to keep from crying out loud and bringing Gajeel and Lily rushing in. They'd want to know what was wrong, and seeing them in front of her, especially Lily's genuine concern for her, Levy wouldn't be able to stand it. She knew she would crack and tell them everything. That she'd gotten a message out...and gotten one back.

 _I've betrayed them!_ she wailed in the silence of her mind. _Not just Gajeel, but Lily too. And now there are dragon slayers wandering around? What if Freed found one of them and that's what he meant?!_

Levy could feel her thoughts turning hysterical and she made her mind fix on one point, blocking out every other worry buzzing around her head. She pulled her little book out of the inside of her tunic and flipped it open to the right page. Her overlarge glyphs still shouted at her from the little piece of preserved paper, but this morning she'd found another message printed neatly in the space beneath them. Like hers, it was coded as a line from a Ca Elum play, although a much better one than _A Midsummer Knight's Conquering_.

 _"_ Don't fret little sister," it read, and Levy's memory filled in the rest of the line – _"I could never let you face this purgatory alone._ "

Reading the familiar words, Levy felt herself calm, but the guilt refused to leave her. She didn't know who Freed had sent to find her – Jet or Droy, Laxus and the Thunder Legion, or even just the librarian himself – but if he _had_ run across a real dragon slayer, then Levy could only imagine one way this mess could end.

 _I just wanted to get out of here. I don't want Gajeel to die..._

Levy angrily dried her face, scowling at one of the dimming candles. _If that overgrown reptile wasn't so stubborn, none of this would have happened!_

It was easy to blame him. He was the one that had kept her here. He was the one so afraid of the rest of the world finding him alive he'd resorted to kidnapping.

He was apparently the one that had given her a library when he couldn't stand people touching what was his.

Levy shook her head. That didn't matter right now! This was still Gajeel's fault.

But if a dragon slayer killed him trying to rescue her...that would be hers.

Levy buried her face in her hands. _What am I going to do? What_ ** _can_** _I do?_

But the hard truth was – very little.


	14. Uplifted

My how time slips away. Or rather, runs away after tripping you up and laughing at you in a high squeaky chipmunk voice. n_n; However it happened, you should all thank Twiddal, who not only left a very nice review, but also reminded me it's been more than two weeks since I updated. And here I planned to only let one week go by. Sigh...

But this is a goodie of a chapter (if you'll let me say it myself) and nice and long too, so I hope you'll forgive me. Enjoy it readers! You're all wonderful! ;)

* * *

Hoarded

Fourteen: Uplifted

Obviously Gajeel's brilliant plan wasn't as great as he thought it would be, because Shorty was moping more than before.

"C'mon Shorty!" Gajeel bellowed from where he clung to the pillars outside her room. It was just the two of them again today. Lily still hadn't returned from his dragon slayer hunting, and probably wouldn't be back for a few more days at least. Assuming, of course, he was on the right trail, and that no one else was on his...

Gajeel frowned, then focused on the shuffly sounds he kept hearing from the shrimp's room. "You still in bed there, blunette? If I ain't allowed to sleep in, then _you_ ain't allowed to neither."

"Either," came the half-hearted correction.

Gajeel rolled his eyes, huffing whitish smoke. "Whatever. Look, would you get out here already? You haven't eaten since Lily left." That wasn't normal, right?

"I'm not hungry." She sounded like she was talking into her pillow. If his hearing wasn't so finely tuned, he never would have made her words out. Gajeel didn't think he imagined the dejected taint to her words though.

Gajeel leaned back, scratching an itch behind one ear with the hard tip of his wing. "What's the matter with her?" he muttered to himself. "Lil was right about girls that climb mountains in the rain, so what's knocked the wind out of her now?" She'd been nothing but defiant since he'd laid eyes on her, even when her knees had quaked at the sight of him, but now... It was like that spirit had drained right out of her.

"Is it the books?" he asked, leaning between the pillars to press one eye against the archway. All he saw was an empty set of furniture. Shorty must be in her room. "I know they're, well, medieval, but I thought you liked that sorta stuff."

"It's not the books, Gajeel." Her words drifted out of the nearest curtained archway.

"You've read 'em all before haven't you?"

He heard an aggravated sigh inside. "That's not the point, just...leave me alone, would you?"

The dragon frowned at her curtain. Now why would he do something ridiculous like that? "No way, Shorty. Now get out here before I do something you'll regret." He waited. "I feel a song coming on, Lev. You'd better hurry before I start singing. No one has ever liked my voice, and I've met a whole lot more people than you Levy. Lev?"

She didn't come.

"All right, Shortstuff, you asked for it." Gajeel opened his mouth and started belting out the words to his favorite song. "It's colorful, colorful sweet, shooby do bop, sho shooby, an' ya gotta bite hard on the rock do bop, the honey's gone hard sweet honey shooby shooby do~!"

His voice sounded like brass bells falling down a very long, acoustically challenged flight of stairs, and his tail slapped the level below him off rhythm, shaking rocks from the ceiling. It didn't take Levy long to stumble from her room, hands pressed tight over her ears. Gajeel grinned toothily down at Levy's bed-mussed figure – her wild hair and her over-large pajamas all twisted around her tiny figure. "Well _finally_."

Levy scowled up at him, daring to lower her hands when he didn't finish the verse. "What was that?!" she demanded, her voice a little scratchy.

Gajeel pretended not to know what she meant. "A song I wrote myself," he told her, a large hand pressed to his chest in false modesty. "Pretty great, right?"

"It you're trying to get the bats out of your belfry, sure," Levy grumbled as she crossed her arms over her sleep shirt, her face turning pink. Probably because she'd just realized she was practically half-dressed. _Or because I got her out here after all, and that means I win._ Gajeel smirked.

The woman turned even redder and shuffled her stocking feet. "Look, what did you want? Or are you just out to make a pain of yourself while Lily's not here to talk some sense into you?" She kicked a small rock and it went skittering over the edge, like a bad penny down a well.

Gajeel pretended to watch the pebble fall. This was the part he hadn't quite figured out. What was he supposed to say? 'I'm worried about you because you're acting funny and I heard you crying last night when you thought I was asleep?' He would sound like a sissy...and a pretty creepy one at that.

 _Lily's better at this stuff_ , Gajeel thought as the rock fell, but then again, if Lily were still here, he would tell Gajeel to leave her alone or else.

The rock finally hit bottom, and it was so quiet even Levy heard the tiny impact. "Well..." Gajeel mumbled just to stay _something_. "It's just that...I noticed you ain't...been _you_ test last few days, Lev. And I was- well, I just wanted to...make sure you hadn't, uh, knock yerself in the head or sumthin'," he finished lamely, looking over at the wall and scratching at the back of his neck scales with one nervous hand.

 _You sound like a tongue-tied moron_ , he berated himself.

Levy didn't appear to have noticed. She was staring at the toes of her socks, deep in her own thoughts.

"Shorty?" Gajeel tried.

She snapped her head up and he didn't think the redness around her eyes just came from last night's crying jag. "I'm fine, Gajeel," she tried to tell him. "I just haven't slept well recently."

 _Yeah right_ , the dragon thought, but didn't know how to call her out on her lie without starting a fight.

 _Well maybe she needs a good fight_ , he thought somewhat petulantly. _Something to snap her out of this funk, get her moving again. And having her mad at me has got to be better than all this-_ He looked at her sidelong again, the redness around her eyes and nose doing funny things to his common sense, _-weepiness._

A good verbal war would certainly cheer him up. It got too quiet when Lily was gone. There wasn't anything to do but sleep and eat and very rarely go for a nice long-

Gajeel's eyes lit up. Well that usually worked for him, and with winter undeniably here thick woolly clouds covered the sky from one end to the other. The question was, could Shorty handle it?

He cast his eye over her again. _Yeah_ , Gajeel thought, _what was I thinking? Shorty'll love it._

She noticed him staring. "What're you looking at?" she asked, her voice flat and un-inquisitive. Oh yeah, this was definitely just what she needed.

Gajeel leaned his head toward her with a smirk, ignoring her question. "You like trying new things, don't ya Shortstuff?"

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned away, uneasy. "Yeah, I guess..."

"I mean, that's how ya got yerself out here right? Dragon treasure, adventure, just take off and see where you end up?"

The woman nodded again, suspicion in the lines around her eyes.

"Well..." Gajeel shifted in excitement, raining pebbles down into his nest. Ah, he'd clean 'em up later. "I just thought of something I _know_ you've never done before, but every human's always wanted to."

Her frown deepened, changing as she tried to think of what he meant. Gajeel grinned, knowing she wouldn't guess. "What?" she finally asked, voice a little less glum.

"Gihi, that'd ruin the surprise. You want to find out, yer just gonna have to trust me."

Oh, it was such a bad idea! And he knew she knew it too, by the way the Shrimp shuffled from foot to foot. But Gajeel thought it was her kind of bad idea.

When she hesitated a little longer, Gajeel put the final nail in the coffin. "Unless..." he drawled, "yer too chicken to even try...?"

Some of the old Levy broke through to the surface and she scowled at him. "Don't try your second rate manipulations on me," she told him, chin lifting in defiance without her notice. Gajeel grinned wider. "And did you forget who won our last round? I can take any _challenge_ your warped little mind can think of."

"Who you callin' little, Shrimp?" But his smile wouldn't leave. This was going to be great!

Levy lifted her nose at him, but didn't bother to repeat herself. Her doubts lingered though, no matter how hard she tried to hide them. "Just for the record," she said, twisting her pointer fingers together, "how much would Lily disapprove if he knew what you were thinking right now?"

Gajeel smirked, leaning an elbow on the stone near her, getting into position. "His tail would go bald," he told her.

She blinked her dark eyes at the sheer amount of Lily-fury that would require. And then she stood there thinking. Gajeel didn't say anything more, much as he wanted to hurry her up to make a decision.

When she finally did, Shorty sighed, resigned to her choice. "All right, fine. Tell me or show me whatever this is so I can go back to be-he _hyaaaa_!"

Her shriek rang in his ears as Gajeel snatched Levy off the rock in both talons and dropped away from the stone face. She screamed as he dropped, just enough to get his wings situated before he snapped them open, and then screamed some more as he began to rise up the mountain with powerful, hefty wing beats.

" _What do you think you are doing?!_ " Shorty screamed, followed by something offensive that made him smile when she saw the blank rock ceiling overhead. She must have figured out there was magic there, masking the exit, but her scream rose an octave anyway.

" _Gajeel you dummy_!"

"Don't get yer panties in a twist, Shorty!" he shouted over the tremendous sound of the air. The ceiling was right on top of them. "You'll get used to it!"

Levy hid her face in her arms, her face burning red despite the cold air rushing over her face. "Sh-shut up about my underwear you rust eaten pervert!" She cracked one eye open as she realized, "How do you even know about underwear? You don't even wear any- _eeeee!_ "

The stone ceiling ran at them and Levy shrieked as she clung to Gajeel's scales, the dragon laughing like a roaring furnace as he plunged through it into frigid open air.

...

 _I'll blast him wingless! I'll file his teeth down in his sleep! I'll- I'll douse him in water and watch his hide rust!_

Levy ran out of the really good threats and was left without much to distract herself from her own imminent death. That had to be what was happening here. Gajeel wasn't mad, so she didn't _think_ he'd found out about Freed's message, but that wouldn't stop this fool or a dragon from dropping her on accident.

 _Or keep me from freezing to deah!_ Levy thought with her eyes squeezed shut. Gripped in Gajeel's foreclaws like a doll, only her face and arms were exposed to the elements and her skin was awash with thousands of frozen, stinging needles. Rain? Hail?

"Ow!" One of them struck her straight on the nose, and she covered her face with both hands, opening her eyes automatically. It wasn't so bad, but only because she couldn't see anything. Gajeel must have taken them into the clouds, because all Levy could make out was thick, grey mist that stung as they whipped through it. He was flying straight up, their speed bearing down on Levy's neck and shoulders until she was flattened against Gajeel's hard scales.

She felt her stomach start to slide up her throat despite the fact she hadn't eaten anything in the last day and a half. _I'm gonna be sick..._ She groaned, the sound lost immediately in the mist.

The change was near instantaneous, happening in the sliver of a second. Light sliced through Levy's eyes like a knife, pain lancing up her optic nerve to bloom in her head. The mist was gone except for a few vapors curling up after them, resolving into a mass of dark clouds so thick beneath them they looked solid enough to walk on. The sun was a brilliant disk high in the pale sky, but the air was still cold in Levy's throat.

Gajeel had slowed and Levy could lift her head again, although the muscles ached. He had to work his wings more now that they weren't traveling in any certain direction, and they bobbed in the thin air like a cork as he gave Levy a chance to take in the feeling of the whole world laid out beneath her.

"I come here sometimes when I can't sleep anymore," Gajeel murmured when Levy didn't speak. "I like it. It's peaceful. Undisturbed. I don't have to worry about humans shrieking 'aiee a dragon, hide the silver.' "

A smile pulled Levy's mouth. Her heart was starting to adjust. "I don't think that's what they would worry about if they saw you, Gajeel," she murmured.

The dragon huffed, his hot breath a physical thing in the cold air. Levy welcomed the heat before they were moving again. No wait, only she was. Gajeel was lifting her over his head to his back. She passed one of his large eyes, catching sight of her distorted reflection in the polish of his head spines.

He smirked at her wide open mouth and wild eyes. "Chill out, Shorty. I ain't carrying you like this the whole way. Sides, the view's better from back there anyway."

He settled her on his armor-plated neck, and Levy gasped a shriek when she slid backwards a few inches before bumping up against the collar of his armor. It rose over her head, already proving an excellent wind screen. Levy looked around, realizing she was in one of those necessary chinks in armor that let the knight keep his mobility. Right now Gajeel's head and neck took up most of her vision, and she could feel the force of his back muscles with each powerful stroke of his wings, even here at the base of the dragon's neck.

"I can't see much of anything with your big head in the way," Levy grumbled when he twisted around to look at her.

Sunlight struck his teeth like they were polished silver when he grinned at her. "Gihi." Levy's stomach dropped into her socks.

"Hold on tight, Shorty!" He gave her a split-second warning that Levy clung to before the muscle cords under his hard skin changed and they shot forward through the sky, the force throwing Levy back against his armor.

The sudden wind stole her breath but a little laugh escaped her lips in spite of it. He moved so fast! Her heart was pounding in her chest, the adrenaline surging through it warming Levy in seconds. Gajeel stiffened his wings out on either side and swept to one side, then the other, before straightening out again. Levy caught a glimpse of his dark shadow arrowing over the storm clouds with them.

Gajeel dipped towards the cloud and threw his wings up and down, sending up vapor and mist ahead of them that they tore through like the wind was cutting through Levy's sleeping clothes. Levy was too delighted at this complete feeling of freedom, of escaping the dark and the earth and its gravity, to feel properly embarrassed though.

She laughed, then caught sight of Gajeel's tongue hanging out his mouth, over his teeth like some enormous metal dog, and laughed harder. He wheeled about, showing off for her, and Levy leaned into the turn.

Flying hadn't lost its joy by the time Gajeel landed on a cloud-shrouded mountain top. "Where are we?" Levy asked as she looked around. The sunlit rock hovered like an island on the sea of gray and white, a large plateau studded with bits of hardy greenery below the rounded peak overshadowing it. "This isn't your keep."

"There's still some pieces of the world left humans ain't found," Gajeel told her as she swung her leg over his neck and slid down his shoulder to the almost sandy ground. "This one's mine."

Levy steadied her jelly-legs before taking in the immediate area. The stone under her feet was tan and covered with rock dust eroded by the wind keening over it. They weren't in the Kadashi Mountain range anymore then – that was all dark granite. There were a handful of flowering bushes too that she hadn't seen on Gajeel's mountain, stubborn things with tough, woody arms and clusters of red flowers bobbing in the wind, lacing it with a faint, spicy fragrance. Her eyes trailed up the steep side of the summit and slid nearly closed when something near the top caught the already brilliant light and threw it back at her.

"What's that?" Levy asked, pointing to the flash. "At the top."

Gajeel raised his head to look, but Levy didn't think he needed to. "A memorial for my pops," he told her, still watching it, "Metalicana."

Levy turned her head to him, opening her mouth to offer her condolences, but stopped before the words left. She felt suddenly ridiculous saying it. Metalicana had probably died centuries ago. Was there really any point to saying she was sorry when he had passed long before her time?

She looked down at her mismatched socks, swallowing her words. The wind blew stronger for a second and Levy shivered in her pajamas.

"You can look around if you want," Gajeel offered, his mood lightening. "I want to sun for awhile before we go back."

Levy nodded, smiling up at him despite her chattering teeth. "Sounds good to me."

She roamed the plateau while Gajeel swept a large circle for himself among the bushes with his tail. Their sharp scent had been pleasant before, all tumbled about by the wind, but as the dragon flopped down on his back it was overpowering. Besides, there wasn't much here anyway. "I'm going up higher," Levy told him as her eyes started to water. Gajeel grunted as he twisted himself into an uncomfortable looking position, scales gouging into the dirt as he let the sun warm his belly like some giant, happy animal.

"Don't trip," he called after her eventually.

Levy's eyes rolled over her smile. She was already several feet up the hill. It wasn't so steep on the back side, and she grabbed at the woody stems of plants growing in the shade to help pull herself up. It was colder on this side out of direct sunlight, but Levy was soon sweating as she huffed her way higher. She didn't see the metal sheet until she tripped over it, her toes nearly freezing on the cold surface. She shrieked a little as she danced around, trying to keep some feeling in her feet.

"Shorty?" Gajeel's voice shouted from the other side. "You all right up there?"

"Fine!" she shouted back, finally jumping off the metal slab onto the marginally warmer dirt on its other side. Levy sighed as the cold ache started to sift out of her toes. "It's nothing!"

She heard him grumble and shift about as she crouched down to get a better look at what she'd found. Someone had left a long metal ribbon on the mountain peak like a wing. No, she corrected herself, a path leading up and down. It lay under the wild brush, one side curving up, and on her other curving down and around, back toward Gajeel. They metal was completely exposed to the elements, and Levy didn't sense any sleeping magics, but it hadn't rusted or worn.

 _Stainless steel_ , she realized. _Just the kind of thing an iron dragon would leave for his father's memorial, I guess. But why did he make it so small?_ It was just wide enough for her to walk on without feeling she was going to fall to her death.

Levy followed the path up, curiosity growing as she fought her way through the bushes. She'd never thought of Gajeel having parents before, although he must have come from _somewhere_ she thought now. Even infant dragons didn't survive long without somebody to care for them.

She broke through into direct sun again and felt relieved when she found the steel walk was warm enough to stand on. It didn't take Levy long to reach the top now that she wasn't continually untangling herself from the bushes.

The memorial grew out of the summit almost like a wild thing itself. Black iron, shaped and treated by dragon's fire Levy didn't doubt, rose up in the beginning of flight. The shape of the dragon was more of an impression given by the rising shape, but Levy saw it, head looking straight above at the open sky, wings reaching for the sun.

Her eyes followed the spine of its back down to its tail where it wrapped around a smaller, reaching figure under it. The ancient symbol of a human was repeated over and over in the ancient hieroglyphs, and Levy recognized it immediately, although she thought it strange to find a human standing at a dragon's memorial.

 _But maybe it's not so strange_ , she thought as she stood before the iron dragon and the iron man. _Gajeel fought for the humans in the War of the Races, so his father probably did too._ Morbidly, Levy wondered if that was how he died.

She took her time, slowly wandering around the freestanding sculpture. She leaned over the edge of the rock at one point to ask Gajeel at least one of her numerous questions, and saw his mouth wide open as he snored. Levy shook her head and decided not to bother him.

The little woman finished her circle and stopped to take one last look before finding her way down again. The wind was biting this high up and Gajeel's decision to just soak up the sun was sounding better and better.

Levy wasn't sure if the book had been there before or not, or if she only just saw it now that the sun had moved, but it was sitting on the ground under the dragon and behind the man. She walked around the statue again, peering under wings and elbows as she tried to find a way to get it out. It took some finagling (and minor contortions) but eventually she slipped it free with a small, "Ah!"

It was an old leather-bound journal, the hide so old it had cracked and the leather strings meant to keep it closed had disintegrated into stubs. There was a large _M_ embossed on the front, and Levy opened it to see what it was. Carefully, of course.

The writing was faded, illegible to the naked eye, but eventually she found a page she could understand.

 _The hatchling is proving himself a great, fat nuisance. Thick-headed and stubborn, he refuses to learn the magic I try to teach him, preferring brute strength to win. And what little he does make use of usually goes awry with even more destructive consequences. Yesterday, he destroyed a whole smithy in the town we were passing through. Not a dent or a scratch, but smashed the whole thing! Even the anvil was cracked clean down the middle and who do you think had to fix it all, huh? Me! I tried to tell him he'd better watch himself or he'll end up breaking more than furnaces and he just looks at me and grumbles, 'Like you're one to talk, old man.'_

 _Grandeeney tells me it's a phase, that he's a child and it'll pass. Well if it's a phase I look forward to the day her little angel turns into a cyclone!_

 _I almost found myself wishing I'd never found him lost on that battlefield or that I'd gone through the effort of finding him suitable guardians among his own kind. But I didn't, and I won't, even if he is a brat._

Levy sat there, staring at the words, too stunned to even think of reading more. Gajeel...had been adopted. _By a human_.

"No wonder he knew about underwear..." It was the only thing she could think.

A sudden snort down below her made Levy jump, the book jumping in the air with her as she juggled it, trying not to drop it. She'd only just managed to grab it when Gajeel's sleep-fogged call of, "Shorty?" reached her. Feeling like she'd somehow spied on him by reading Metalicana's journal, Levy crept to the edge and looked down, holding the book out of sight behind her.

"Yes?" She hoped she didn't sound too squirrely.

Gajeel blinked groggily up at her. "It's gettin' late. Sun disappears early with all these clouds. We should head back."

Levy nodded, relieved that was all he wanted. "Okay, I'll be right down."

She dashed down the path, Metalicana's journal held tight in one hand, as much as she wanted to tuck it in her waistband to hide it. _It's not mine, it's Gajeel's. I shouldn't have read as much as I did._ But she bit her lip and couldn't help wishing she'd read a little more.

Gajeel had twisted his neck around so his head lay flat on the ground as he watched Levy jog down from the memorial. She could read his face a little better after the last few days, including the slow rise and fall of his eyelids as he struggled to come awake.

Levy slowed her pace across the flat surface of the plateau, giving him time as she tried not to over think what she was going to say. The dragon finally got his eyes all the way open and released a jaw-cracking yawn that made the lines in his neck stand out between his scales. Levy waited a few feet back, knowing what was coming.

Sure enough. "Ahhh- _shoooo_..." He released his yawn, letting his head fall back to the ground and sending clouds of sand rolling away towards the clouds lapping at the edge. Gajeel squeezed his eyes shut and blinked them wide open only to find Levy standing near his nose, leaning to make sure she was in his line of sight.

"Hey sleepy scales," she said, smiling a little nervously. She still wasn't sure what to expect from him when he saw the book held out in front of her.

"Mrfgr..." Gajeel grumbled, still bringing the world into final focus. Levy knew when he saw the M on the cover when his pupils went still.

She looked away as he sat up, eyes fixed on the old book. "How'd..." he started to say.

"I found it." The words jumped out of Levy's mouth. "Under the memorial statue, which is very lovely by the way. I like the roughness to it and the, um..." She realized she was on the brink of babbling like an idiot and stopped herself.

Gajeel numbly bobbed his head. "Thanks," he mumbled. "I forgot I'd left that here."

Levy looked down at the scuffed animal hide, running a thumb along the spine before holding it out without meeting the dragon's eyes. "D-do you want it then or should I, uh, put it back for, um, later?"

She could feel his eyes on the top of her sun burnt head. "How much did you read?" he asked, suspicion in every syllable.

Levy felt her face turn red and knew it had nothing to do with the unfiltered light. "Well, ah..."

"Oh, c'mon Shorty," Gajeel said as he settled his arms under his chest, wings shuffling behind his head. "Like you could resist an old book like that. Now c'mon, what deep, dark, mortifying secret did you find about me?"

She knew he wasn't entirely kidding. "Well..." she said again. "I heard you broke an anvil in half."

Gajeel snorted something like a laugh and covered his eyes with one hand. "Oh...I forgot about that one," he groaned. "The old man had steam comin' out his ears."

Levy's mouth twisted up in half a smile before it evaporated. "And, um, that Metalicana found you," she murmured, "and took you in as a hatchling."

Gajeel didn't speak. He was silent for so long that Levy risked a glance up at his face. She'd worried she'd overstepped somehow, but the look on his face showed...relief. Why? Because he was glad she knew? It wasn't like being an orphan was such a shameful thing. But then maybe he'd been abandoned, or the other dragons had looked down on him for being raised by a human and taking their side in the war. Levy didn't know, didn't know enough about them to even guess properly.

Gajeel looked out over the cloud sea at the sun, now on the far side of the sky. His shadow fell across Levy and she shivered at the drop in temperature. The air here just leached the warmth right out of her, she'd swear.

"Whatever you do, we should go. Your hair won't be the only thing blue about ya if I take you home in the dark."

"Huh?" Levy mumbled.

The dragon tilted one eye toward her, tapping at the cover of his father's book very carefully with one claw. "The book. Take it, leave it, just make up your mind while there's still some light and let's get outta here."

Well, if Gajeel didn't care...

Levy slipped Metalicana's journal inside her shirt, all but tying it to herself with the drawstrings of her pajama pants. Gajeel snorted a laugh, and she knew he hadn't expected anything less.

"Just, eh..." he muttered as Levy climbed up his shoulder to the shelter of his collar, "don't drop it."

Levy huffed in mock indignation as she hopped onto his neck. "Gajeel, who do you take me for? You?"

"Hey, I go ya here, didn't I? You may have noticed the solid ground beneath your feet."

Levy clucked her tongue at him and pretended to pout, but it was quickly forgotten in the lurch as Gajeel dove into the cloud sea, falling like an arrowhead before rising back up into golden sunlight.


	15. Ghosts in Oak Town

So long time no see, but Hoarded continues! It took me awhile to fill in the gaps this chapter had, which is why it took so long, but it's finally ready (and I'm pretty sure the next one is even more finished so I'll set a reminder to post it quicker than this one n_n;)

But big news! My book The Hybridian Way **is now published**! I know you all love Gajeel and Levy more than characters you've never heard of, but you know my writing, so I hope you'll give my book a chance, or at least check it out on my website . I love you all readers! And thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed this story. I hope you love the chapter!

* * *

Fifteen: Ghosts in Oak Town

...

Oak Town was frost-touched and littered with gap-toothed pumpkin's grinning at him from the street corners the day Panther Lily returned, and with some surprise he realized it was the first day of the eleventh month, the day after the Guiding Lanterns Festival.

"I hadn't realized the year was so close to ending," he murmured to himself where he sat on the patio of his favorite cafe. He usually came here when he visited Oak Town. Not more than a handful of times a year, but enough that the waitress Helena always remembered him.

The middle-aged woman herself stepped out of the little building and ducked her head against the cold. The wind was brisk enough that it set her long skirts tangling against her legs. "Goodness, Mister Lily, how can you stand this cold? We have a perfectly good table inside, but no matter what time of year it is, I find you out here, street watching."

Lily smiled at the woman. "Fur coat," he explained, getting a chuckle out of her. "And people are fascinating to watch, especially when they don't think they're seen." He grinned as a familiar man came around the corner, stiffening when he saw Helena standing on the patio. Lily was sure he was the only one that noticed. Helena herself never seemed to.

He raised a paw. "Good morning Theo," he called loudly, startling the solidly built carpenter. "How are you today?"

"Oh, um, eh…" He finally comprehended Lily's question and bobbed his head up and down. "Oh, yes, fine, fine. Been busy with the festival and all. The shop is a mess so I really should…"

He practically trotted down the street, red faced that Helena had seen him. Not that she knew why he was always hanging about.

"Strange man," Panther Lily heard her mumbled.

He chuckled, and changed the subject. "How was your festival?" he asked, grinning at her. "See any ghosts?"

Helena turned to him with a smile. "Only the little ones demanding candy," she told him. "Although I heard the neighbor's girl telling my littlest one she'd seen the drowned ghost visiting the mountain again." She shook her head and leaned down to deposit Lily's hot cider on the table. His whiskers twitched at the smell of spiced apples curling with the white steam into the air. "Of all the old stories to keep popping up," Helena grumbled. "It kept her up half the night afraid the ghost would drag her away, no matter how often I told her that tale was old when I was a girl. 'But Mama,' she said, 'she's a ghost. It's not like she got old and died _again_.'"

Helena snorted and shook her head. "Hm," Lily hummed in vague agreement. Someone must have seen Juvia the last time she visited. He'd have to remind her to be more careful. "The old stories do linger."

Helena nodded and folded her arms over her serving tray. "That they do." Her eyes flicked to Gajeel's mountain, iron gray against the startling blue of the autumn sky. Lily pretended not to notice.

She turned back to him and smiled. "Well, I have more customers inside. Will you be needing anything else?" She raised her eyebrows. "Sonja made her famous pumpkin tarts for the festival. We still have some."

"Tempting…" Lily told her, patting his stomach. "But I'd better stick to the cider. Although, ah…"

Helena paused. "Yes?"

One of the little decorative ghosts had caught his eye where it hung from the eaves of the cafe roof. _Speaking of Juvia…_ "Could I purchase one of your little ghosts there? A friend of mine would love it."

The waitress turned to see where he pointed and laughed. "Your friend has unique tastes, Mister Lily. But please, help yourself. We make new ones every year, so no charge."

"Thank you Helena," Lily said with a nod, already making up his mind to leave a nicer tip than usual for her generosity. There was a small clack from the door as she returned to the warmth of the cafe, and Lily relaxed into his oversized chair. He closed his eyes and breathed in the chilled peace of the day. Cold air gusted down the street, rifling through Lily's fur and feeling like it came straight off the mountain, but the sun was warm on his head and Helena's cider left cinnamon on his tongue, the smell of it spicing the air around him. People walked down the street in coats they didn't bother to close and Lily watched them with half lidded eyes as he enjoyed some rest after such a long journey. The cat recognized most of the people from around town, but not all of them. In fact, more than half were strangers.

"Looks like they had a fair turn out for the festival," Lily murmured to himself. He nodded, closing his eyes. "Good. Helena could use the business."

He sipped his cider slowly and watched them. There were a few wealthy merchants and their families touring Oak Town, and Lily recognized a handful of soldiers despite their civilian dress. More than one had a local girl on his arm, getting a tour of their own. And of course there were the wizards, either just passing through or walking dejectedly down the street because they hadn't seen the famous drowned ghost of legend.

"I guess the Lantern Guiding Festival came very close to putting Oak Town back on the kingdom's map," Lily murmured as he finished off the last of his cup. His whiskers twitched as he smiled, nearly purring as he enjoyed the last of the cinnamon warmth.

"Another Mister Lily?" Helena reappeared with her usual smile and uncanny punctuality.

Panther Lily shook his head, already pulling out his coin purse. "No, thank you Helena. It was delicious as always, but I need to be getting back." Gajeel was expecting his report and he wanted to see how Levy was doing.

Two men came around the corner as Lily pulled out his purse. They made such noise Lily's ears flicked straight to them and even Helena looked over and frowned.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Sure I'm sure. I know how to read a map, don't I?"

"But why would Levy be all the way out here? I mean, look at this place! There's only the one library and no book shops."

Lily's ears pricked straight up, his change rolling right off his paw to the ground. _What did he just say?_

"Mister Lily?" Helena watched him in concern. "Is something the matter?"

Lily was already scouring the crowd, searching for the men that had spoken. There, just passing the cafe entrance.

"Mister Lily?" Helena tried again.

"Yes! I mean, no, nothing's wrong." He hoped. "I'll just- I'll just be a moment Helena. Could you bring my check in the mean time?" he called as he took off down the street after them.

"But- you already paid!" the waitress called out after him.

Lily didn't hear her. His ears swiveled every which way, trying to sort out the voices he'd heard from the more mundane babble of the town. "-know what Freed was thinking, not telling us he could find her all this time-" They were on the next street over.

Summoning his wings, Lily swept them down as he leapt, and the extra force let him make it to the top of the alley fence stretched between two store fronts. He dodged the laundry lines of the apartments above them, jogged down the length of a hibernating window box, and dropped the few feet to the ground on the far end of the alley. He'd closed the gap. The men were just a few yards down the street from him now.

Looking at them from behind, they were a pair worthy of the comedy acts that sometimes rolled through town with the spring fairs. One was tall and extraordinarily skinny, while the other was a head shorter and extraordinarily fat. The tall one wore mostly purple and gray, and had a blue band tied around each wrist that jarred against the bright orange of his hair, pulled back tight across his skull and away from his narrow face. His friend wore lighter colors, including a matching blue band straining around the girth of his upper arm, except for the black bandoliers crossing his wide chest. Pouches dotted their lengths and Lily wasn't sure but he thought he smelled...garden soil?

Lily exhaled in shaky relief. Not knights at least, but they had the unmistakable air of wizards about them.

 _Wizards looking for Levy..._ Lily's eyes furrowed in thought, tail starting to swing from side to side. _They could just be friends of hers coming for a prearranged meeting. But they mentioned another, didn't they?_

Before he could remember exactly what the thin one had said, the man himself stopped in the street with an aggravated shout and slammed his foot into a nearby dumpster.

"Well, that was smart," his fat friend said, echoing Lily's feelings as the man hopped around on one foot grumbling darkly under his breath as he held his throbbing toes.

He scowled at the fat one over his beak-like nose. "How can you stand there all calm, Droy?" he demanded, throwing his arms around. He'd knock some poor passerby's eye out with those pointy elbows if he weren't careful. "This is Levy we're talking about! She needs our help and you're not even worried about her!"

"Of course I'm worried!" Droy shot back, his second chin shaking. "She's been my friend just as long as you Jet, but if she doesn't want to be found, then you and I both know looking for her is hopeless."

"It's not hopeless!" Jet shouted. "And if you're going to try and get me to quit like everybody else, you can just go back to Magnolia right now without me."

Droy crossed his thick arms over his chest, scowling at Jet as he stormed back and forth, furious and with no outlet. Lily noticed the few other people on the street with them had all crossed to the other side to avoid the strange men. Droy must have noticed too, because he smiled nervously at them and raised a hand. "Sorry folks!" he called out. "He's having a hard time of it. His, uh, his girlfriend just dumped him is all."

Lily grunted, wondering if the large man knew how close to the truth he'd hit.

That bought them some empathy from the locals though, enough that they started to raise their heads. Little Priscilla Cooper was one of them, clinging to her mother's skirts. It was only Lily's bad luck the little girl noticed him and waved with a wide, gap-toothed smile. Even worse luck that Droy noticed and turned to see Lily, hanging back close enough to eavesdrop.

The wizard's dark eyes narrowed and Lily quickly focused on Prissy and Mrs. Cooper, crossing the street to say hello. He fixed a smile on his face for the little girl, but kept his ears tuned to Jet and Droy.

"C'mon Jet. Let's get out of here before you cause a real scene."

Jet huffed. "Thought you had a train to catch," he accused bitterly.

"Shut up. If Levy really does need help, you know I'd never leave her out to dry. Besides, someone has to remind you to think every once in a while-"

"Kitty Lily!"

Lily jumped as the little girl latched onto him, his tail fuzzing out like a very long caterpillar. Mrs. Cooper didn't quite hide her laughter. "Good morning, Mister Lily," she greeted him.

"And to you, Missus Cooper," he managed to say past the surprisingly strong, if not tiny, arms squeezing him.

Prissy jumped back before her mother could chastise her, a six-year-old scowl on her round face. "Kitty Lily missed all the treating!"

He assumed she meant the trick-or-treating the town children did the night before the festival. "I'm sorry Priscilla, but I was out of town that night. I just got back today."

Her scowl turned into a stormy pout. "Prissy!" she insisted.

Lily couldn't help the small smile. "Lily," he returned.

Prissy immediately beamed at their familiar little game, showing off her missing tooth. "Kitty Lily!" she cried, not about to change her mind.

Her mother shuffled her off after that, much to Lily's relief. He made sure to wave at the girl when she twisted around to shout out a last, "Bye bye Kitty Lily! Sees you later!" before he turned and ran after the two wizards.

It took some searching, but Lily finally found them in the local ale house, perched on a couple of stools. Or overflowing one, in Droy's case. It was quieter in here than the rest of town, and Lily tired not to draw attention to himself as he crossed the room. He nodded to the bartender, who thankfully didn't say anything, and took a table near the back, behind one of the beams that stretched from floor to ceiling. Neither man saw him.

"I just don't understand it," Jet was saying, his head down on the bar.

"What?" Droy asked as he picked another fried potato from the basket in front of him. "Why she'd be in a town with no book stores or why she left in the first place?"

"Both. Either!" Jet sat upright and threw his chin into one hand instead.

Droy snorted as he finished the basket and ordered another. "I don't know why you keep asking what you already know," he grumbled.

His friend hit the bar, earning a glare from the one or two patrons that hadn't left since last night. "Fine, so she couldn't stand the little weasel. Neither could I. But why'd she run off on her own, huh? She musta known I would've helped her, that I- _we_ woulda gone with her! To the ends of Earth-Land if she wanted!"

 _Oh boy..._ Lily thought. _He's got it bad._

"The fact that she didn't-"

"Here we go again..."

"-it means something Droy!"

Droy gave a long suffering sigh. "Like what?" But Lily wondered if he didn't already know the answer.

"Like maybe she didn't leave cause she wanted to!" Jet hissed, eyes flicking around the room as if he thought the nearly empty room had ears. He lowered his voice, but Lily had no trouble picking out his words in the drowsy silence of the bar. "Maybe that little weasel knew she couldn't stand him so he kidnapped her."

The end of Lily's tail twitched. _Who is this weasel they keep talking about...?_ Maybe Lily was watching the wrong front.

Droy didn't think so. "That kid didn't kidnap Levy. It hasn't even occurred to him she ran away to avoid marrying him-"

Lily startled, eyes wide, mouth dropping open. His tail thwaked against the back of his chair and he bit his cheek to keep from howling. _Marry?!_

Jet twisted around again at the noise, but only saw the wooden beam. Droy either didn't hear him or simply wasn't as paranoid as his friend because he only kept talking. "-and I doubt he's so much as questioned the excuses her m- mother gave him."

Jet snorted. "Probably," he grumbled as Lily wondered at Droy's stammer. He hadn't planned on saying 'mother'. 'Majesty', perhaps? Lily's dark eyes narrowed as he ignored the throb in his tail. If the queen of Fable had sent these two it could be a prelude to very big trouble for all three of them. But...

Lily leaned around the wooden beam and looked Jet and Droy over again. Well, they didn't exactly look like someone a queen would put a lot of confidence in, if he was being honest. He couldn't speak to their wizarding abilities offhand, and it was obvious they cared more for Levy then run-of-the-mill bodyguards or soldiers, but Lily's experienced eye saw they lacked the discipline serving royalty directly required. These were Levy's friends, not her watchdogs, Lily thought in relief, which meant Levy's mother may not even know they were here-

Oh.

Oh, no.

Droy had leaned down to pull something from his pack, resting against the legs of his overburdened stool. His coat had barely handled the strain before, but now one of his sleeves ripped clean along the seam, showing an equally tight shirt underneath. It was threadbare, travel-worn, and the tattoo on his left shoulder leapt out at Lily, making his heart pound against the roof of his mouth.

It showed a little leaping figure with something like a beak and wings fluttering out behind it over its tail and its one outstretched leg. A little dancing fairy, or at least the Fable people's common misconception of one.

Makarov.

These were two of Makarov's wizards.

"Oh man, not again," Droy moaned as he contorted himself to see what he'd done to his shirt. Jet just laughed at him and slapped him on the broad back, making the split widen. Lily watched as they started to argue, bickering like children, and only remembered to breathe when black spots started flickering in his vision.

He stood and had to steady himself against the table to keep from stumbling. Master Makarov was searching for Levy. Well, of course he would – he'd known her since she was born and wasn't Fable's master wizard for no reason. Or its spy master, although that was only a rumor. Still, Lily should have seen this coming...

 _Why couldn't they work for the queen?_ he thought as he made his way to the street as quickly as he could without letting Jet and Droy see. He had his wings out as soon as his feet hit the street. Lily had to warn Gajeel. He couldn't make a whole town forget something as rare as a blue-haired, treasure-hunting wizard, so he has to warn Gajeel now that they were coming.

Lily pushed hard to get over the streets, the orange of the pumpkins littering the street corners and garden fences bright spots in the dreary day. The dark lanterns swung forlornly from their decorated posts where they were supposed to guide the drowned ghost. The irony wasn't lost on the black cat. The Lantern Festival may have ended, but Levy's ghosts had only just arrived in Oak Town.

...

Metalicana's journal didn't exactly contain any deep, dark secrets as far as Levy had seen, but it sure was entertaining.

"Mmfee-" She clapped a hand over her mouth, afraid the sound would carry. Knowing she wasn't alone, though, didn't make it less funny. "Mm!"

A sigh gusted out of the next room. "I can still hear you in there, you know," Gajeel grumbled at her.

More snickers escaped before her, "Sorry," squeaked out.

He muttered something about her Levy couldn't understand past her silent laughter. Or, _nearly_ silent anyways.

"Shorty!"

She finally cracked and the laughter burst out her mouth instead of the stitch in her side. She rolled backwards, arms wrapped tight over her stomach like it needed to be kept in place. She couldn't breathe but tried anyway and wound up with a quill feather in her mouth. Not her magic one, an ordinary one for more ordinary notes and tricky translations.

When she finally got her breath back and the feathers out of her mouth, Gajeel was standing over her with both of his eyebrows raised. "You through yet?"

Levy giggled as she hoisted herself up and wiped the tears from her ears. "I thi-hee-hee-ink s-so," she told him and then breathed deep to try and banish the aches in her chest. She expected Gajeel to wander back into his nest room, but instead he settled himself down between the makeshift bookshelves, careful not to disturb Levy's collection of candles.

She sat up and wrapped her arm around one knee, smiling up at him. "I never would have thought you were such a wild child!" she exclaimed.

He huffed at her. "You callin' me _sedate_ Shorty?" he asked, put off by the suggestion.

Levy grinned. "All the books in the world couldn't get me to tell a lie that big," she told him.

That seemed to settle him. "I just meant that you don't...do much down here," she added hesitantly, afraid of insulting him outright.

He didn't deny it. "Yeah, well," Gajeel mumbled as his eyes wandered to the far wall. "There's only so much you can occupy yerself with underground before you lose interest. Add a century or two and you just stop trying."

Gajeel shuffled his wings in a dragon's shrug, but Levy didn't think he was as resigned as he wanted her to think. At least she hoped not.

"What, not even you could collect enough stuff to keep busy?" She tried to tease some good humor back into him.

Red eyes glanced sidelong at her. "My hoard is just as impressive as any dragon's, and it ain't none of yer business."

Levy felt her heart thump as she stretched out her legs and leaned her weight back on her hands. "Are you saying all that junk upstairs _isn't_ your hoard?"

Gajeel swung his head away and refused to say anything.

 _Real dragon treasure!_ The thought tantalized the treasure-hunter in her and Levy bit her lip and tapped her fingers against the edges of Metalicana's book. _No. No you already got what you really wanted. Don't pry just because he's got real treasure somewhere lying behind all those spelled doors with their traps and false leads and-_ She gave her head a quick shake. _Don't pry!_

"Well why don't you ever go outside then? If you can't stand to be down here all the time either?" Levy asked as much to distract herself from the thought of real dragon treasure as to get an answer.

Gajeel rolled his eyes. "Aii! Aii! Dragon! Run away!" he mock screamed in a shrill voice.

Levy frowned at him. "That better not have been an impression of me," she told him. "And you've got magic, don't you?" She meant it rhetorically, but blinked when she realized she hadn't actually seen Gajeel cast any spells. "Don't you?"

"Yeah!" he said, hopefully louder than he meant as Levy dealt with the ringing in her ears. "But it ain't transformation magic, Shorty. I can't _change_ what I am. I could pretend, cast a glamour humans couldn't see past, but what's the point of that when I'd still end up knockin' into houses and people would run into me." He snorted. "Even humans would figure _that_ one out."

Levy looked up at him, eyebrows creased together. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't think of what. How could she when she didn't understand what had him so agitated?

Gajeel didn't explain it to her either. "Look, I was trying to sleep before. You mind takin' yer laugh riot upstairs?" he groused as he got back to his feet, knocking into a bookshelf and only just managing to keep it from falling with his tail.

"Sure, I guess," Levy murmured, stunned at his vehemence as he glared at the shelf.

If the semi-guilty look he slid her was anything to judge by, he knew he wasn't making any sense. "Thanks," he grunted before he left, wings stiff against his back. Only one of the double doors stood open, and while Gajeel could fit, the scales of his sides scraped against either side with a sharp screech. "Too small," Levy just heard him growl to himself. "Whole world's gotten too small..."

Levy didn't think this had much, if anything, to do with size, but as she gathered her supplies up and blew out all but one of the candles, she couldn't think of what was really bothering him.

 _Maybe Metalicana knows_. She could only hope so as she started the long climb up the back stairs, her little light just bright enough to let her slip through the dark.

...

 _War is never pretty, but when it's your own brat on the battlefield, well...it gets uglier._

 _Still, he did well for his first real fight with the enemy – that is, he isn't dead. Got one of his legs busted up, but Gajeel heals quick enough. In a way, I'm grateful. If he'd managed to get through the ordeal unscathed, he'd think he was invincible and be even cockier than he naturally is. That really would kill him, eventually. That and his gloating is unbearable..._

 _Even if he is careful, death may be unavoidable at this point. There are so few dragons left fighting for Ishgal that for every victory, we suffer three defeats. We are slowly being overrun. If not for the dragon slayers, we would be lost already, I think. Acnologia, in particular, fights with a drive that even I find chilling. He is not handling Shadre's death well._

 _Like I can throw stones. Despite all the headaches he caused me, I still find myself grieving the loss of Igneel, and at my lowest, I think the birds taking flight is Grendine alighting from the air. Skyidram and Weisslogia departed with them, but they got their own kids off safely, and I know each would consider that a fair trade for their lives. I know I would, if it had been possible to send Gajeel with them as I originally planned. But then he was too exposed and now there is no point to wishing things were different._

 _Still, I wish it was. I miss them._

...

Levy frowned where she sat cross-legged on her bed. The dragon slayers...fought _with_ the dragons for Ishgal? But how did that make any sense?

 _Because there were dragons on both sides,_ she realized, _the ones native to Ishgal like Metalicana's friends Igneel and Grendine, and the ones attempting to invade from the Western Continent!_

Levy scrounged her memory and remembered an old historian crediting the development of dragon slaying magic as Ishgal's key to driving back the Western dragons. It had just never once occurred to Levy that some dragons would be as grateful for that as the humans.

A thought clicked into place in Levy's head and her eyes widened. _Is that what Metalicana was? A dragon slayer?_ It would explain how he knew enough about them to take care of a young Gajeel.

Eager to see if she was right, Levy kept reading.

...

 _More losses. Verdreen is dead, along with her slayer and the girl's sister, Bibliogis' partner. The bookwyrm himself is either dead or in hiding, and without him goes our attempt at credible information and coordinated schemes. He'd better be dead and not heartbroken under some rock or I'll kill him myself._

 _Gajeel is proving himself a fearsome warrior. He even pulled my hide off the fire the other day, and galling as it was to realize I'm getting slow in my old age, I'm still proud of the brat. I would tell him that if he would just stop grinning like the beast he is. He knows anyway, I'm sure. 'Don't let it get to ya, Pops. What's an iron dragon without his iron dragon slayer?'..._

...

"Ah!" Levy cried, throwing up her hand and splattering jam from her biscuit on the wall behind her. "Oops...but I knew it!" She finished off her biscuit then licked her fingers clean. "Good to see Gajeel isn't quite as full of himself as he used to be though. He's insufferable enough on his bad days now..."

She scraped her mess off the wall as best she could before finishing the entry.

...

 _...I would whack him if I thought it would do any good, but I think that grin of his is etched in place. Besides, I taught him too well. He knows all my dirty tricks._

 _I worry for him though, that too well might not prove good enough. And the more he fights, the more he is exposed and I see the consequences of that in Acnologia. The man has long passed driven and is teetering on unstable. The line between ally and enemy is becoming indistinct in his eyes, and that concerns me. There are even rumors that Verdreen survived the battle that killed the slayer sisters only to fall to Acnologia instead. That may explain why Bibliogis disappeared so abruptly..._

 _Or he's a selfish tomtarra. Blasted bookwyrm._

...

"And that explains why Gajeel knew that old insult too," Levy murmured as she turned the page. They were getting dirtier the more she read, dirt-stained, even blood-spattered in some places, as the war progressed. She was almost to the end now.

...

 _I should have sent Gajeel with the others despite the risk! He would hate my guts, curse my name, no doubt scour the world looking for me just to punch my lights out, but at least he wouldn't be alone with Achnologia!_

 _I don't know if he planned this or he just couldn't face a life of peace now that we've vanquished the dragons of the Western Continent, but Acnologia has turned on us. Bibliogis knew. He saw him murder Verdreen,_ ** _after_** _the battle was over. I only just received word from the bookwyrm and at first I hoped it meant he lived, but no. He is dead as all the others. But he always was a clever one. His last message tells me Acnologia wants us all dead – dragons and dragon slayers. And he no longer cares much who he gets to first._

 _But he still has some shred of loyalty in him. To Gajeel, although I wished he'd torn that out with the rest of him. I've tried to keep them apart through all this, but in some ways Gajeel and Acnologia are too much alike. They share a tight camaraderie, and I fear he'll use it to try and pull Gajeel into his insanity. But I can't see it. The brat might be crude, even cruel, but he fought for Ishgal, not for Achnologia. He won't just go along with Achnologia's plans to wipe us all out._

 _But he's hardly tactful either. He's going to tell Achnologia to go to Hell when he suggests they take out dragons and dragon slayers together, and I think I know how Achonologia will react, and while Gajeel is strong, he can't take on a dragon slayer like Achnologia. Even if I get there in time we might not be enough._

 _I only take enough time to write this in case I fail and we both wind up dead. Someone must know of Acnologia's betrayal, although Mavis alone could help whatever poor idiot tries to take him on, and she has her own trouble with Spriggan and his ilk at the moment._

 _There is good news though. For me anyway. If you're reading this, it's probably not my problem anymore._

...

Levy turned the page, breath frozen in her throat, and stared at the other side.

Nothing.

She thumbed through the last few pages, looking for the end. They were all blank.

 _He stopped writing because...because he couldn't_ , Levy realized. _Because Metalicana...that's when he..._ She couldn't finish a single thought. It was horrible, and all she could think was _Well what did you expect from a journal you found under his memorial?_

Levy didn't remember getting out of bed, and she didn't remember walking down the spiral corridor with Metalicana's book held against her chest. She was only vaguely aware of the air getting warmer the closer she got to Gajeel, of the silence as he only pretended to sleep.

He hadn't bothered dousing any of the torches. She could see him perfectly well curled up tight on his nest, his tail wrapped around his body so only the tip of his snout protruded from the mass of scales. He knew she was there.

If only she knew what to say.

Levy opened her mouth, and realized she couldn't look at him. Oh, where was Lily when she needed his advice?

Words suddenly felt so cheap, and Levy closed her mouth. She placed Metalicana's book on the ground next to Gajeel, and then before she could think herself out of it, she climbed up on the dais and sat down with her back to a bend in Gajeel's tail. She looked down at her hands and tried to rub the old ink off her fingers.

Levy realized she was stalling. "I got to the end," she murmured.

Gajeel didn't twitch.

"What happened after?"

He didn't tell her.

"Because-" She had to work to get the words past the constricted muscles in her throat, "-I can really only think of one thing and it's not- I want to be wrong, Gajeel. But I can't help but think that Metalicana found you in time and, and I don't know how or why, if you were hurt or outmatched, but I think Metalicana saved you." Her throat threatened to close altogether. Her voice, when she managed to find it again, was small and scratched at her mouth. "But you couldn't save him."

Levy had thought Gajeel couldn't go any stiller, but she was wrong.

She looked down at her hands again, feeling the bumps of her right-hand knuckles with her other hand. Sometimes her bones still tingled when the magic-poison tried to settle again, but the past week had been pretty good. "I really want to be wrong, Gajeel," she whispered.

The dragon was a hot weight behind her, as silent as Metalicana's mountain peak memorial.

Levy nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. "In that case Gajeel, I just have one question left," she rasped.

Gajeel waited.

"What made Acnologia that way?"

His name hung in the air over them like an imminent cave in. Levy wasn't sure he would answer, wasn't even sure she wanted to know the answer given everything Achnolgia had done, but she'd asked, and she couldn't take it back now.

She shifted against Gajeel, speaking over her shoulder. "It's just, Metalicana said he'd been exposed to something. What was it? What could do that to a human being?"

Gajeel didn't answer her, but eventually he loosened his tail, giving Levy a brief glimpse of his nearest eye before the weight of his tail suddenly disappeared from behind her. Levy fell back against his arm, her eyes following the rise then fall of his tail as he brought it back down, around her.

She scooted back, bumping up against the dragon's arm, and she found herself tucked into the warm space next to Gajeel. She stiffened, not sure if this was an answer or if he expected her to do something before it occurred to her that maybe this was all he wanted. That he didn't expect anything more than her silent company.

So Levy laid her head on Gajeel's arm and sat there, telling herself she could wait the few hours until tomorrow for an answer.


End file.
